Tea Partyhttp://www.teaparty.org
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 23:42:25 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.1Gov’t Meddling in Tech Security Left ‘Zombie’ Flaw in Webhttp://www.teaparty.org/govt-meddling-tech-security-left-zombie-flaw-web-86866/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=govt-meddling-tech-security-left-zombie-flaw-web
http://www.teaparty.org/govt-meddling-tech-security-left-zombie-flaw-web-86866/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:40:19 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86866(Washington Post) – Technology companies are scrambling to fix a major security flaw that for more than a decade left users of Apple and Google devices vulnerable to hacking when they visited millions of supposedly secure Web sites, including Whitehouse.gov, NSA.gov and FBI.gov. The flaw resulted from a former U.S. government policy that forbade the ...

]]>(Washington Post) – Technology companies are scrambling to fix a major security flaw that for more than a decade left users of Apple and Google devices vulnerable to hacking when they visited millions of supposedly secure Web sites, including Whitehouse.gov, NSA.gov and FBI.gov.

The flaw resulted from a former U.S. government policy that forbade the export of strong encryption and required that weaker “export-grade” products be shipped to customers in other countries, say the researchers who discovered the problem. These restrictions were lifted in the late 1990s, but the weaker encryption got baked into widely used software that proliferated around the world and back into the United States, apparently unnoticed until this year.

Researchers discovered in recent weeks that they could force browsers to use the weaker encryption, then crack it over the course of just a few hours. Once cracked, hackers could steal passwords and other personal information and potentially launch a broader attack on the Web sites themselves by taking over elements on a page, such as a Facebook “Like” button.

The problem illuminates the danger of unintended security consequences at a time when top U.S. officials, frustrated by increasingly strong forms of encryption on smartphones, have called for technology companies to provide “doors” into systems to protect the ability of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance.

Matthew D. Green, a Johns Hopkins cryptographer who helped investigate the encryption flaw, said any requirement to weaken security adds complexity that hackers can exploit. “You’re going to add gasoline onto a fire,” said Green. “When we say this is going to make things weaker, we’re saying this for a reason.”

Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the ACLU, said “You cannot have a secure and an insecure mode at the same time… What we’ve seen is that those flaws will ultimately impact all users.”

The existence of the problem with export-grade encryption amazed the researchers, who have dubbed the flaw “FREAK” for Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys.

The export-grade encryption had 512 bits, the maximum allowed under U.S. restrictions designed to limit trade in military technologies in the 1990s, during a an era often called “The Crypto Wars” because of pitched political battles over deploying cryptographic algorithms that even advanced government computers had trouble cracking. But 512-bit cryptography has been considered unacceptably week for more than a decade. Even experts thought it had disappeared.

“We thought of course people stopped using it,” said Karthikeyan Bhargavan, a researcher at the French computer science lab INRIA whose team initially found the problem during testing of encryption systems.

Nadia Heninger, a University of Pennsylvania cryptographer, said, “This is basically a zombie from the ‘90s.”

For vulnerable sites, Heninger found that she could crack the export-grade encryption key in about seven hours, using computers on Amazon Web services. This would allow hackers to conduct what experts call a “man-in-the-middle” attack to make seemingly encrypted traffic easy to read. Such attacks can be launched by anybody who has access to Internet traffic, including governments, Internet providers and coffee shops or airports that offer wifi hotspots.

More than one third of encrypted Web sites – including those bearing the “lock” icon that signifies a connection secured by SSL technology – proved vulnerable to attack in recent tests conducted by University of Michigan computer science researchers J. Alex Halderman and Zakir Durumeric.The list includes news organizations, retailers and financial services sites such as americanexpress.com. Of the 14 million Web sites worldwide that offer encryption, more than 5 million remained vulnerable as of Tuesday morning, Halderman said.

There is no way to know how widely the FREAK flaw has been used to hack Internet users, though “man-in-the-middle attacks” are popular among governments conducting online surveillance, particularly in their own countries, such as Iran and China. Travelers also are vulnerable whenever they log onto the Internet from a hotel, for example.

Green and the other researchers have been alerting affected government agencies and companies over the past several weeks in hopes that they could correct the problem before it became public. Akamai, a leading cloud services company, however reported on efforts it had made to mitigate the problem in a blog post Monday afternoon, bringing attention to the issue earlier than the researchers had planned.

In recent days, FBI.gov and Whitehouse.gov have been fixed, though NSA.gov remains vulnerable, said Green. Apple is preparing a security patch that will be in place next week for both its computers and its mobile devices, said company spokeswoman Trudy Miller.

Google’s Chrome browser is not vulnerable to the FREAK bug, but the browser that comes built into most Android devices is vulnerable. Connections to Google’s search Web site are not affected by the flaw.

The company said Tuesday that it has developed a patch for the Android operating system’s browser and has provided it to “partners,” meaning the companies that make most Android devices. It will be up to those companies to deploy it. Security experts have long complained that crucial updates can take months – or never arrive at all – because Google does not control the process of delivering patches to devices running Android.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/govt-meddling-tech-security-left-zombie-flaw-web-86866/feed/0REPORT: White House-Press Relations Worse than Everhttp://www.teaparty.org/report-white-house-press-relations-worse-ever-86864/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=report-white-house-press-relations-worse-ever
http://www.teaparty.org/report-white-house-press-relations-worse-ever-86864/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:24:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86864(Politico) – A new study from the Columbia Journalism Review finds that the current White House relationship with the press is the least open it has ever been, a longstanding belief among the Washington press corps. A review of every official exchange President Barack Obama has had with the press in 2014 in addition to interviews with ...

]]>(Politico) – A new study from the Columbia Journalism Review finds that the current White House relationship with the press is the least open it has ever been, a longstanding belief among the Washington press corps.

A review of every official exchange President Barack Obama has had with the press in 2014 in addition to interviews with more than a dozen reporters “reveals a White House determined to conceal its workings from the press, and by extension, the public,” the report reads.

In his few interactions with the press, Obama gives long answers, leaving little time for other questions, and rarely makes news, often punting to later announcements, the study found.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest stopped holding off-the-record gaggles in the mornings in his office “because reporters would just stand around tweeting everything Earnest said,” according to CJR.

Part of the problem, the study found, was the quick nature of the news cycle. Former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs complained that no one asked Obama about the Senate torture report in a December press conference, held two weeks after its release.

“Gibbs said a good question for his former boss would have been, ‘How do you balance, Mr. President, your first act, of outlawing this [torture]’ with ‘watching a 6,000-page report being issued during your administration, in which you held no one accountable’ for the behavior. ‘And then just step back’ and hear the president reflect on it, Gibbs said.”

In spite of these difficulties, correspondents said there’s still value in having a pool following Obama around each day, since it can help gauge his mood and health.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/report-white-house-press-relations-worse-ever-86864/feed/0Conservative Campus Paper Warned Over Satirizing Terroristshttp://www.teaparty.org/conservative-campus-paper-warned-satirizing-terrorists-86861/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=conservative-campus-paper-warned-satirizing-terrorists
http://www.teaparty.org/conservative-campus-paper-warned-satirizing-terrorists-86861/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:23:25 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86861(Campus Reform) – No student or student group at a public university should have to fight for their First Amendment rights. But as I’m preparing for graduation in a few short months, that’s exactly what I find myself doing—fighting for the rights of my student publication. At the Minnesota Republic, we pride ourselves in standing up ...

]]>(Campus Reform) – No student or student group at a public university should have to fight for their First Amendment rights. But as I’m preparing for graduation in a few short months, that’s exactly what I find myself doing—fighting for the rights of my student publication.

At the Minnesota Republic, we pride ourselves in standing up for freedom of speech on campus because we might not exist without it.

Our publication, derived from the University of Minnesota’s Students for a Conservative Voice (SCV), allows students on campus to share their viewpoints no matter what—even if they are considered offensive.

When Vice Provost of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Danita Young Brown apologized to students for a student group throwing a fiesta on the grounds that it might offend the Chicano and Latino students, we printed Goldy Gopher with a sombrero on the front cover. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, we put adrawing of Muhammad on the cover, asking for speech over terror.

We do these things to show support for students’ right to say what they want on campus.

But the Student Service Fees Committee (SSFC) is now putting our rights in danger.

Every year student groups apply for funding from this committee, which is responsible for allocating millions of dollars. And while it’s a fight every year to secure the funding needed to print theMinnesota Republic, this year we were faced with a new challenge—the right to publish what we want.

At SCV’s budget presentation to the committee, we were asked about a back cover from an issue published in 2011 that pictured a man with a gun burning an issue of the Minnesota Republic with the words, “Terrorists hate the Minnesota Republic.”

Other than the protection afforded by the First Amendment to print such things, the SSFC even has its own rule that protects students’ rights to print content without hurting their request for funding.

And if the fees committee was following its own rules, a four-year-old newspaper cover would not have been questioned.

“While reviewing one of the sample publications, committee members came across material that demonstrated an overt lack of sensitivity to the portrayal of members of the Arab world,” SSFC’s funding recommendation to the Minnesota Republic said. “When pressed for information on how this piece made it into print, representatives informed the committee that, based on the date of this particular publication, the members responsible for that work are no longer in the organization and that this particular piece is not representative of the work produced by the organization today.”

“After assessing this information, the Student Service Fee Committee would like to emphasize for the group the significance of culturally sensitive discourse on a campus like the University of Minnesota, which prides itself on being home to a wide range of values and beliefs held by members that originate from countless cultures across the globe,” the recommendation continued. “In the future, close attention may be paid to the content published by Students for a Conservative Voice to ensure that any material that is produced with student fee funds does not compromise the cultural harmony of the campus and to ensure that the material that is produced is not at odds with the criteria in place for receiving this funding.”

I am shocked that not one person in the room during these deliberations questioned the committee’s flagrant disregard for our right to free speech as it was questioning whether or not our publication disrupts the “cultural harmony” on U of M’s campus.

It’s clear that their statement is meant to scare students on campus from publishing or saying anything that the committee might not like.

Students should be encouraged to share their views at a public university, not threatened when they do so.

Sadly, this is not the first time that the Minnesota Republic has had to deal with censorship issues at the U of M. Earlier this year, a stack of our publication was found in the garbage next to our newsstand. Our newsstands have also been vandalized and signs promoting the Minnesota Republichave been ripped up and thrown on the ground.

The Minnesota Republic has dealt with all of this, while the U of M has stood by and allowed it to happen. Whether it is offensive speech or not, all speech on a public university campus should be protected.

Students on campus should not have to feel as though the university is spying on them, waiting for a chance to strip them of their First Amendment rights. Instead, students—especially on a public campus—should be undeterred in their discourse and dialogue on any issue.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/conservative-campus-paper-warned-satirizing-terrorists-86861/feed/0Shots Fired Near NSA Headquarters, Building Damaged by Gunfirehttp://www.teaparty.org/shots-fired-near-nsa-headquarters-building-damaged-gunfire-86858/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shots-fired-near-nsa-headquarters-building-damaged-gunfire
http://www.teaparty.org/shots-fired-near-nsa-headquarters-building-damaged-gunfire-86858/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:20:24 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86858(NBC news) – Park Police officials told News4 they’re investigating a report of shots fired along BW Parkway and Route 32 in Fort Meade, Maryland. The National Security Agency is located nearby, and has reported that one of its buildings has been damaged by what appears to be multiple gunshots. SPECIAL: Modern Day Patriots, this is ...

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/shots-fired-near-nsa-headquarters-building-damaged-gunfire-86858/feed/0Trey Gowdy Says He’s Going After Hillary Clinton’s Personal Emails on Benghazihttp://www.teaparty.org/trey-gowdy-says-hes-going-hillary-clintons-personal-emails-benghazi-86855/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trey-gowdy-says-hes-going-hillary-clintons-personal-emails-benghazi
http://www.teaparty.org/trey-gowdy-says-hes-going-hillary-clintons-personal-emails-benghazi-86855/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:17:59 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86855(The Blaze) – Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that he will press former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her personal emails related to the 2012 attack in Benghazi that left four Americans dead. Gowdy spoke to reporters less than a day after the New York Times reported that Clinton only used her personal email accounts ...

]]>(The Blaze) – Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that he will press former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her personal emails related to the 2012 attack in Benghazi that left four Americans dead.

Gowdy spoke to reporters less than a day after the New York Times reported that Clinton only used her personal email accounts to do business while secretary, and that several hundred of these emails were recently turned over to Gowdy’s Select Committee on Benghazi.

But while the committee has seen those emails, Gowdy said Clinton still controls her own personal email accounts, and even the State Department can’t verify that it has seen all of her emails related to Benghazi.

“[T]hey cannot certify that they have produced all of former Secretary Clinton’s emails because they do not have them or control them,” Gowdy said in a prepared statement for reporters.

“The Department of State is relying on Secretary Clinton herself and her attorneys and advisors to tell us, to tell you, what emails they think are to be preserved,” he added in that statement. Gowdy said it’s “nothing short of incredible” that any top official would use personal emails while in office, especially given past concerns from both parties about how that practice makes it hard to keep a record of their tenure in office.

With State unable to say it has all of Clinton’s emails, Gowdy said his committee has no choice but to press Clinton to turn over those emails.

“The State Department does not have all of the former Secretary’s emails on its servers, only she has the complete record,” his statement said. “And the committee is going to have to go to her, her lawyers and her email providers to ensure we have access to everything the American people are entitled to know.”

Gowdy said he’s “greatly troubled” by the problems presented by Clinton’s use of personal email, such as keeping a record and ensuring evidence is available to congressional investigators. “I am also greatly concerned about the national security implications of former Secretary Clinton exclusively using personal email accounts for the conduct of official U.S. foreign policy,” he said.

He said Clinton seems to have used more than one personal email account, and indicated his committee would be looking for all Benghazi-related emails from all of her accounts.

Gowdy credited his committee’s work with uncovering Clinton’s use of personal email accounts, even though the State Department has said it’s own workers were trying to collect those emails. Gowdy also said his committee discovered her use of personal email last summer, but never revealed it, and said that shows he’s doing his best not to use the press to sensationalize the investigation.

“The fact the Benghazi Committee was able to uncover this previously unknown, and before today unreported, information speaks to the need for the Benghazi committee,” he said. “The fact that fact the committee does not rush to trumpet every discovery we make speaks to my personal commitment to conduct a fair and impartial investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attack.”

Gowdy has said several times that he wants Clinton to testify at his committee, but he said he does not want that to happen until he has all information possible from her.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/trey-gowdy-says-hes-going-hillary-clintons-personal-emails-benghazi-86855/feed/0Here Are the 75 House Republicans Who Conceded the Immigration Fighthttp://www.teaparty.org/75-house-republicans-conceded-immigration-fight-86852/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=75-house-republicans-conceded-immigration-fight
http://www.teaparty.org/75-house-republicans-conceded-immigration-fight-86852/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:16:14 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86852(The Blaze) – The House on Tuesday admitted defeat after a month-long effort to defund President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, and passed a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that leaves Obama’s plan intact. The vote came after dozens of House Republicans fought to the bitter end to reject the “clean” DHS bill, ...

]]>(The Blaze) – The House on Tuesday admitted defeat after a month-long effort to defund President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, and passed a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that leaves Obama’s plan intact.

The vote came after dozens of House Republicans fought to the bitter end to reject the “clean” DHS bill, in an effort to oppose what they see as an unconstitutional action from Obama. The House passed the bill 257-167, and sending it to the White House for Obama’s signature into law.

(Scroll down to see a list of House Republicans who voted for the “clean” DHS bill)

In the end, 167 Republicans voted against the Senate’s version of the bill. But because the bill was supported by every Democrat, only 30 or so Republicans had to support it to ensure it’s passage, and 75 GOP members voted for it.

The vote marks the end of a bitter fight over Obama’s immigration action that saw Senate Democrats dictate the terms of the dispute throughout the entire process. The House was able to easily pass a bill defunding Obama’s immigration plan, but when it got to the Senate, Democrats refused to provide the six or so votes needed to advance the legislation.

After a few weeks, with pressure building on the GOP to fund DHS, Democrats were able to force the Senate to approve a DHS bill that didn’t include any immigration language at all. On top of that, Senate Democrats refused to negotiate with the House on the bill.

That forced House GOP leaders to concede that they could either force a partial DHS shutdown, or admit defeat.

In floor debate, Republicans on both sides of the issue blamed Senate Democrats for refusing to follow basic procedures and forcing the House’s hand. But GOP members split on just how hard the House should have fought back.

Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.) led the group of Republicans who opposed the clean DHS bill, even at the risk of a partial DHS shutdown, in order to make the point that the House shouldn’t be steamrolled by the White House and the Senate.

“Today we heard Mr. Netanyahu say this is the most powerful legislative… organization in the world,” Massie said. “I would say it is, except for when the Senate decides that it’s not.”

“The fault lies in the U.S. Senate,” added Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.).

Several others agreed that the need to protect the constitutional role of the House was a larger issue than DHS funding. Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.) rejected the Democratic criticism that Republicans can’t “govern,” and said conservative GOP members are trying to follow the Constitution.

“If it was just about governing, then I think that the American people can just close shop and let the president just run everything. But we actually have a constitution that we have to adhere to,” he said.

“Despots all over the world, they govern. They keep the trains running on time. But we stand for something different,” he added.

Other Republicans, however, argued that there was no where else to go in the fight except a DHS shutdown that would bring Republicans more scorn and derision.

“The problem is, I don’t see a path to victory,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).

Many other Republicans noted that a federal court has imposed an injunction on Obama’s plan, which has prevented key parts of Obama’s program from being implemented. Several have said the GOP should claim that as a win and move on by ensuring DHS is funded.

Below is the full list of House Republicans to voted for the “clean” DHS spending bill:

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/75-house-republicans-conceded-immigration-fight-86852/feed/0Target to Cut Thousands of Jobshttp://www.teaparty.org/target-cut-thousands-jobs-86850/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=target-cut-thousands-jobs
http://www.teaparty.org/target-cut-thousands-jobs-86850/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:03:58 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86850Part of $2 billion cost-savings plan (CNBC) – Target’s chief executive, Brian Cornell, said Tuesday the retailer will cut several thousand jobs within the next two years as part of a $2 billion cost-savings plan. The Minneapolis-based company also announced 2015 guidance of $4.45 to $4.65 adjusted earnings per share. Wall Street expected Target’s guidance ...

For 2016, Target expects earnings per share to increase 10 percent and a 5 to 10 percent dividend growth rate.

Last week, the retailer reported earnings of $1.50 per share on revenue of $21.75 billion, beating Wall Street’s expectations of $1.46 per share on $21.63 billion in revenue. The company’s total U.S. sales also grew by 1.9 percent in 2014.

Target also increased its 2015 first-quarter guidance to 95 cents to $1.05 adjusted earnings per share, up from 92 cents per share the same time last year.

“We’re seeing early momentum in our efforts to transform Target, and our team is entering the new fiscal year with a singular focus on continuing to differentiate our merchandise assortment and shopping experience while controlling costs by reducing complexity and simplifying the way we work,” Cornell said in the company’s latest earnings report.

Target has also reportedly zeroed in on seven grocery categories, including yogurt and beer, to attract younger shoppers. In other words, it will be less reliant on products from General Mills, Kraft Foods and Campbell Soup, Reuters said in a report last week that cited The Wall Street Journal.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/target-cut-thousands-jobs-86850/feed/0Obama’s Nobel Prize Chief Gets Dumpedhttp://www.teaparty.org/obamas-nobel-prize-chief-gets-dumped-86847/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obamas-nobel-prize-chief-gets-dumped
http://www.teaparty.org/obamas-nobel-prize-chief-gets-dumped-86847/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:02:03 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86847U.S. president, fighting multiple wars, was given honor after 9 months in office (The Local) – The committee, which said the former Norwegian prime minister would remain as a committee member, gave no reason for its decision. However the renowned diplomat had drawn sharp criticism shortly after becoming committee chairman in 2009 for awarding the ...

]]>U.S. president, fighting multiple wars, was given honor after 9 months in office

(The Local) – The committee, which said the former Norwegian prime minister would remain as a committee member, gave no reason for its decision.

However the renowned diplomat had drawn sharp criticism shortly after becoming committee chairman in 2009 for awarding the prestigious Nobel to newly elected US President Barack Obama. The move stunned the world and the recipient alike, as Obama had been in office less than nine months and the United States was waging simultaneous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

After six years at the helm of the high-profile committee, the 64-year-old will be replaced by the current deputy head, Kaci Kullmann Five, the organisation said.

“There was broad agreement within the committee that Thorbjørn Jagland was a good chair for six years,” Kullman Five told reporters, but declined to comment on the discussion.

Commentators and former Nobel laureates alike had criticised the committee’s decisions under Jagland’s stewardship.

Hitting back at critics after Obama’s prize, Jagland said the organisation wanted to praise the US leader’s early vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and capture “the spirit of the times, the needs of the era”.

Last year, a federal study estimated that the United States will spend $1 trillion upgrading its nuclear arsenal over the next three decades.

A year after Obama received the prize, the committee also drew Beijing’s ire for handing the prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, a move that effectively put Norway-China relations on ice.

And in 2012 Jagland became the face of a body that handed the award to the increasingly unpopular European Union for its commitment to “peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights”.

“The EU is clearly not the ‘champion of peace’ that Alfred Nobel had in mind when he wrote his will,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in an open letter with two other former laureates.

A former leader of Norway’s Labour Party who has served as prime minister, foreign minister and speaker of parliament, Jagland spent much of his career trying to bolster support for Norway to join the EU. Tuesday’s action raised questions of whether the Nobel committee — which has been awarding the peace prize almost every year since 1901 – will begin to show more political colour.

Traditionally its five members are appointed by parliament but claim total independence in their decision
making.

Jagland’s demotion reflects a shift into a majority of committee members nominated by right-wing parties, which won Norway’s 2013 general election.
“This can be interpreted as an attempt by the rightist government to exert more political control over the committee than has been customary,” Nobel historian Asle Sveen told AFP.

Others expressed more grave concerns.

“This introduces a new principle by which we associate the chair of the Nobel Committee with the new majority political colour,” wrote Harald Stanghelle, editor of daily newspaper Aftenposten. “This raises the question: Is the Nobel Committee as independent of a political point of view as it should be?”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obamas-nobel-prize-chief-gets-dumped-86847/feed/0West Virginia Senate: The 2nd Amendment is a Concealed Carry Permithttp://www.teaparty.org/west-virginia-senate-2nd-amendment-concealed-carry-permit-86843/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=west-virginia-senate-2nd-amendment-concealed-carry-permit
http://www.teaparty.org/west-virginia-senate-2nd-amendment-concealed-carry-permit-86843/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:35:41 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86843Senators voted 32-2 for passage of the bill to eliminate the permit requirement (Breitbart) – On February 27 the West Virginia senate passed a bill to eliminate the need for obtaining a permit to to carry a concealed handgun, citing the 2nd Amendment as reason enough to exercise an “inherent right.” Five other states–Alaska, Arizona, ...

]]>Senators voted 32-2 for passage of the bill to eliminate the permit requirement

(Breitbart) – On February 27 the West Virginia senate passed a bill to eliminate the need for obtaining a permit to to carry a concealed handgun, citing the 2nd Amendment as reason enough to exercise an “inherent right.”

Five other states–Alaska, Arizona, Montana, Vermont, and Wyoming–already recognize the 2nd Amendment as sufficient justification for carrying concealed. And on February 13, Breitbart News reported that the New Hampshire senate voted to rescind their requirement for a permit for concealed carry.

According to The Charleston Gazette, West Virginia senators voted 32-2 for passage of the bill to eliminate the permit requirement. Besides rescinding the permit requirement, the bill recognizes the age of legal concealed carry should be 18 years, not 21.

Senator Robert Kames (R-Upshur) said, “This is a United States constitutional right. The 2nd Amendment recognizes this inherent right.” Senator Charles Trump (R-Morgan) added, “This bill eliminates the crime of carrying a concealed weapon in West Virginia.”

The two “nay” votes on the bill were from sens. Corey Palumbo (D-Kanawha) and Ron Miller (D-Greenbrier).

Another Democrat senator–Mike Romano (Harrison)–voted for the bill but tried to change it to force West Virginians “to take a handgun a safety course before they could carry.” Senator Kames successfully opposed this effort by describing Romano’s push as a “backdoor licensing scheme.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/west-virginia-senate-2nd-amendment-concealed-carry-permit-86843/feed/0CNN Journo Accuses Netanyahu of Politicizing Holocausthttp://www.teaparty.org/cnn-journo-accuses-netanyahu-politicizing-holocaust-86840/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cnn-journo-accuses-netanyahu-politicizing-holocaust
http://www.teaparty.org/cnn-journo-accuses-netanyahu-politicizing-holocaust-86840/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:33:52 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86840(Breitbart) – In her post-speech analysis, CNN political analyst Gloria Borger attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “veering off into political territory” when speaking of the Holocaust and “Never Again.” “And then at the end of [Netanyahu’s speech] when he really veered off into political territory,” Borger said. “I don’t know if it was on ...

]]>(Breitbart) – In her post-speech analysis, CNN political analyst Gloria Borger attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “veering off into political territory” when speaking of the Holocaust and “Never Again.”

“And then at the end of [Netanyahu’s speech] when he really veered off into political territory,” Borger said. “I don’t know if it was on a delay at that point, but when he sort of raised the specter of the Holocaust and “Never Again” and Elie Wiesel … that was just great. Ari Fleischer could have done this great political speech.”

The “delay”Borger references is a 5-minute delay the Israeli media was reportedly using in the event Netanyahu got partisan. The Prime Minister is currently in a close re-election campaign. The election is in just a couple weeks.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/cnn-journo-accuses-netanyahu-politicizing-holocaust-86840/feed/0FOURNIER: Hillary Should Retire White House Dreamshttp://www.teaparty.org/fournier-hillary-retire-white-house-dreams-86838/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fournier-hillary-retire-white-house-dreams
http://www.teaparty.org/fournier-hillary-retire-white-house-dreams-86838/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:32:00 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86838Maybe she doesn’t want to run in 2016, top Democrats wonder. Maybe she shouldn’t. (National Journal) – Perhaps Hillary Rodham Clinton shouldn’t run for president. Maybe she should stay at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where the former secretary of State could continue her life’s work of building stronger economies, health care systems, and ...

Maybe she should stay at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, where the former secretary of State could continue her life’s work of building stronger economies, health care systems, and families. Give paid speeches. Write best-selling books. Spend time with Charlotte, her beloved granddaughter.

Because she doesn’t seem ready for 2016. Like a blast of wintry air in July, the worst of 1990s-style politics is intruding on what needs to be a new millennium campaign: Transparent, inspirational, innovative, and beyond ethical reproach.

Two weeks ago, we learned that the Clinton Foundation accepted contributions from foreign countries. Assurances from the Obama administration and Clinton aides that no donations were made during her tenure as secretary of State were proven false.

I called the actions sleazy and stupid. Sleazy because any fair-minded person would suspect the foreign countries of trying to buy Clinton’s influence. Stupid because the affair plays into a decades-old knock on the Clintons: They’ll cut any corner for campaign cash. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton and his top aides used the White House as a tool to court and reward big donors.

Now The New York Times is reporting that Clinton used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of State, an apparent violation of federal requirements that her records be retained.

Exposed by a House committee investigating the Benghazi Consulate attack, Clinton brazenly dug in her heels. Advisers reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal email and decided which ones to release: Just 55,000 emails were given to the State Department.

Those are our emails, not hers. What is she hiding?

Transparency isn’t the only issue. Clinton exposed confidential and potentially dangerous information to a nonsecure, commercial email system. She gave Chinese spies a better shot at reading her emails than U.S. taxpayers.

TheTimes quoted a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration who said there is only one scenario under which it’s proper for Cabinet-level officials to use private rather than government email: “nuclear winter.”

The rest of us are required to play by the rules. Why does Clinton think she’s above them?

Clinton aides quickly funneled through friendly media channels examples of Republicans who used private emails, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Powell operated under a different set of federal rules than Clinton. Bush was not a federal employee (yes, he should release all of his Florida emails, and not just self-selected documents).

This is another Clinton trope: Deflect attention from their wrongdoing by pointing fingers at others—as if two wrongs make a right and they had never promised to set a higher standard.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told TheTimes that she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.” No, she hasn’t. But here again is a reminder of the 1990s: When cornered, the Clintons denied facts and demonized detractors.

The most obvious example is Bill Clinton’s lying about his affair with a White House intern. “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” he said. Less remembered is an independent counsel’s finding of “substantial evidence” that then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton lied under oath about her role in the 1993 White House travel office firings.

Many senior Democrats are angry, though not yet mad enough to publicly confront the Clintons. “This story has legs as long as the election,” said a Democrat who has worked on Capitol Hill and as a presidential campaign manager. “She will be tripping over this crap until the cows come home.”

Another presidential campaign veteran who held a Cabinet-level post in Bill Clinton’s White House fretted out loud about the fact that the former first lady is breezing toward the Democratic nomination.

“We can’t have a coronation when she’s handing Republicans an inquisition,” the Democrat said.

Put me in the same category. Like these two Democrats, I’ve known both Clintons for years. I admire their intelligence and passion and empathy. They’ve been good to my family. I’ve actually long thought that she has the potential to be a better president than he was.

But now I wonder whether there is a part of her that doesn’t want to be president. She seems to be placing obstacles in her lane before the race begins. Is this sabotage or something else?

We’ve had sleazy and stupid—and, now, with these emails, suspicious. If she runs, are we going to have a full Seven Dwarfs?

Seedy.

Sanctimonious.

Self-important.

Slick.

My concern is that Clinton does not see this controversy as a personal failing. Rather, she sees it as a political problem that can be fixed with more polls, more money, and more attacks. In a Politico story about the push to assemble a presidential campaign staff, a former senior Clinton aide said, “We have had our head up our ass. This stuff isn’t going to kill us, but it puts us behind the eight ball.”

Due respect, Clinton’s problem isn’t a lack of staff. It’s a lack of shame about money, personal accountability, and transparency.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/fournier-hillary-retire-white-house-dreams-86838/feed/0Rush: Netanyahu Hit Obama with ‘Direct Punch’http://www.teaparty.org/rush-netanyahu-hit-obama-direct-punch-86835/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rush-netanyahu-hit-obama-direct-punch
http://www.teaparty.org/rush-netanyahu-hit-obama-direct-punch-86835/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 21:13:55 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86835‘Prime minister is everything the president is not’ BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Wow. Holy cow. Just wow. Man, what have we been missing for the last six-plus years, what could have been? Greetings, my friends, and welcome, Rush Limbaugh, coming to you today from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. The telephone number if you ...

RUSH: Wow. Holy cow. Just wow. Man, what have we been missing for the last six-plus years, what could have been?

Greetings, my friends, and welcome, Rush Limbaugh, coming to you today from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. The telephone number if you want to be on the program’s 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

Nothing focuses the mind and heart like moral, ethical, and legal clarity. And today in the House of Representatives chamber at the United States Capitol, the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave an historically important speech. A speech that any previous American president could have and maybe would have made, a speech to rally and save Western civilization.

We are talking about thwarting a plan that gives the world’s leading terrorist state, we’re talking about thwarting a plan being brokered by our administration that gives Iran a certain path to produce nuclear weapons. Iran, the world’s leading exporter of terrorism, the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East. And Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States today in a desperate plea for the world to focus, to get serious, and take notice of what is happening. It was stunning.

I don’t know how many of you in the audience here had a chance to see it. We will have audio sound bites of it coming. We’re still putting those together now. But I’m gonna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it was powerful, and the Drive-By Media is underselling this. As I watched the post-speech commentary on the cable news networks, never has it been more clear that the world in which they live is not the world in which we live. To them it’s just another hum-ho speech that happened to be delivered by a foreign leader.

They’re all engaged in post-speech analysis as they would engage in the post-speech analysis of anybody who happened to give a speech about anything. They’re looking at it through the political prism of how does it help or hurt Obama? How does it help or hurt the Democrat Party, and what is Obama going to do? Will this hurt the Democrats who boycotted this speech?

They are missing the full impact and importance of what this speech was. So we will try during the program today to tell you what that was, explain to you the importance of this speech. The optics of this speech were just so overwhelmingly powerful. When I say “what could have been,” this was leadership. This was leadership in full force.

Benjamin Netanyahu today was everything Barack Obama is not. Everything. This speech today even featured Netanyahu turning to a guest in the gallery, much like presidents who deliver State of the Union speeches. Netanyahu’s guest, Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor. This speech, as I say, historically important, moral, ethical, and legal clarity. Nothing like that combination to focus the mind. And this speech was all about rallying and saving Western civilization, which is what is under assault.

Here’s some excerpts of what Netanyahu said for those of you who haven’t yet had a chance to see it. “Iran’s regime is not merely a Jewish problem anymore than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem. … the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. … Many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.”

By the way, that highlights one of the stark differences between the Obama administration’s approach to all of this and what the approach is in opposition to Obama. The Obama administration believes that they have no right to tell any nation what they can or can’t do, particularly and especially involving nuclear weapons. So what the Obama administration is relying on is, go ahead and give them a time frame where they can get the bomb, ten years, but in that time frame we will persuade them never to use them.

This highlights the hubris and arrogance of Obama, that speeches and words can tame tyrants. We’ve already seen after six years that that promise of Barack Obama back in 2008 has fallen flat. People elected Obama in 2008 with the belief that speeches and words and intelligence could tame the world’s tyrants and make them once again love the United States, which they had only recently begun to hate because of George W. Bush. Well, after six years of Obama’s speeches and persuasion and ego and arrogance, the world is on fire. It is less safe than when Obama arrived on the scene.

Speeches, words, persuasion, will never work. Ask Neville Chamberlain. Ask anybody who has asked a tyrant to stop being a tyrant. But this highlights the difference. That is the Obama approach. Even though Obama only has two more years in office, he still believes that the power of his personality and his community organizer skills or whatever, that he can persuade Iran after they get the nuke not to use it.

The Israeli approach is prevention. Do not let them get the bomb. Don’t take the risk. Don’t rely on a nation which has a 36-year track record of terrorism to all of a sudden get up one day and become nice guys. Netanyahu doesn’t believe it, doesn’t believe he wants to take the chance, doesn’t think it’s worth the chance. He said, “Many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.”

He said, “When it comes to ISIS and Iran, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy. … Don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America.”

And then it got really powerful. By the way, I should point out, he started out with overwhelming praise of Obama. He understands Obama to a T. He understands what you have to do. He understands you have to kiss ass. He understands you have to bootlick. He understands this is what Obama requires. It didn’t work, but nevertheless it makes Obama look small when he responds. Do you know what the White House response to this speech already is? A bunch of useless empty rhetoric and no action. Imagine that assessment from this administration, a bunch of useless rhetoric and no action.

This was a call to action, a call to a specific type of action that’s much different than the rhetoric we are getting from this administration, and rhetoric is all we get. He said, “This deal does not block Iran’s path to the bomb, it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.” Do you realize, ladies and gentlemen, the powerful accusation contained in just that sentence? “This deal does not block Iran’s path to the bomb, it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.” This was a direct punch. If Obama watched this, the first thing that would have-ticked him off would have been the rousing presidential-like standing ovation that Netanyahu got as he entered the House chamber. And it would have only gotten worse for Obama after that.

Netanyahu very cleverly committed, by virtue of the applause he got in the chamber, virtually committed the United States Congress to his conception of defending Israel. But he said, “Israel now has the ability to defend herself, and, if necessary, Israel will go it alone.” Which is another slap, or shall I say punch. Netanyahu said, “This deal won’t be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control.” He pointed out everybody’s praising the fact that there are inspectors, UN inspectors will go in and inspect what Iran has done. He pointed out inspectors can’t and don’t stop anything. Inspectors, at the end of the day, are meaningless. Look at the inspectors in Iraq.

If the inspectors in Iraq had actually had access, we could have learned that Saddam was using artful BS about his weapons of mass destruction. He pointed out that we’ve had inspectors go into North Korea time and time again. Inspectors who spotted X, Y, and Z. They leave. North Korea has the bomb. Netanyahu said, “If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country. … They need the deal a lot more than you do,” he said. “This is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. We’re better off without it. … The alternative to this bad deal is a much better deal.”

And on CNN today, CNN’s website and I’m sure all over the CNN network, here’s the headline of the story: “White House Warns Netanyahu Not to Reveal Iran Details — The Obama administration is bracing for Benjamin Netanyahu to spill secret details of Iran nuclear talks, as both camps traded last-minute political jabs ahead of the Israeli prime minister’s controversial address to Congress at 11am.”

A Democrat, I forget his name, I didn’t get it fully, who didn’t attend today, 50 Democrats boycotted, one of the Democrats who boycotted tweeted after the speech that this speech was an illustration of how the biggest problem facing peace in the Middle East is Benjamin Netanyahu.

You know, something interesting too, Mr. Snerdley, I don’t know if you saw this, CNN in their post-speech analysis and coverage talked to Senator DiFi, Senator Dianne Feinstein. Dana Bash was the infobabe doing the interview, and they cut to her a little bit too soon, DiFi was telling Bash what to ask her, and what she was gonna say. DiFi was going through it, “And this and this and this and this,” and then they cut to Dana Bash, “Oh, God, and here we are with Senator Dianne Feinstein.” Feinstein, I mean, this is a guess on my part, Feinstein looked like she was giving the reporter the parameters of her answer, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I mean, they’re sisters in the cause.

But I’m telling you, folks, this was leadership, this was fearlessness. This speech today has a lot of people wishing we had this kind of forceful moral, ethical clarity leading our own country. And there will be a lot of Democrats, of course, who disagree with that profoundly. Don’t expect this to unify anything. But what this is going to do, and what it did, was expose the abject weakness in the United States position on this whole concept of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have, because this is the EIB Network, we have the first official response from the Obama White House to the Netanyahu joint session of Congress speech this morning.

(playing of spoof).

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s go to some of the Netanyahu speech highlights. The Democrats are now strolling to their microphones to react to this, House Democrats, the ones who attended this. Well, I don’t know if it’ll be limited to those who did attend. We limited the applause to two seconds here, because it would have taken a lot of time to leave all the applause in. So just understand we’ve edited most of the applause, but it was thunderous and it was loud and it was constant for Netanyahu. Now, I mentioned Netanyahu’s smart. He knows who Obama is. He knows how you have to behave. You have to polish the apple. You have to bootlick. You have to kiss butt. So, Netanyahu obliged at the opening.

NETANYAHU: We appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel. Now, some of that is widely known. (applause) In each of those moments, I called the president, and he was there. And some of what the president has done for Israel might never be known, because it touches on some of the most sensitive and strategic issues that arise between an American president and an Israel prime minister. But I know it, and I will always be grateful to President Obama for that support. (applause)

RUSH: I got a bunch of notes, I got a bunch of flash texts and messages and e-mails from people when that happened, and they got very fatalistic. “Ah, come on! Does everybody have to come up here kiss this guy’s butt, can’t somebody just stand up there and not have to cave to this guy?” I said, “You gotta under, he’s got to do this because of what’s gonna come later in the speech. This is part of it. This is required, this respect, this according of respect for Barack Obama. He’s in Obama’s country. He’s got to do this in order put in context and give more power to what comes later in the feature.” It turned out, as usual, that I was right.

Here’s the next bite. This is Netanyahu painting a portrait of the real Iran.

NETANYAHU: Just last week, near Hormuz, Iran carried out a military exercise, blowing up a mock US aircraft carrier. That’s just last week! In the Middle East, Iran now dominates four Arab capitals: Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, and Sana, and if Iran’s aggression is left unchecked, more will surely follow. So at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations. (applause).

RUSH: By the way, the whole House was applauding here. I didn’t detect too many times where the Democrats sat on their hands. There were some instances where they did, but not many. It wasn’t… Look, there was nothing in this speech to not applaud. That was the thing, folks. You know, when Obama gives a speech, there’s plenty to not applaud. When Obama gives a speech, there’s plenty to sit on your hands for. There was nothing in this speech not worthy of applause and support. It’s the way it used to be here, in talking and listening to leaders of the United States of America, to whom it was and is number one.

Here is the section of his speech containing the great line on ISIS and Iran.

NETANYAHU: And don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America. Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls itself the Islamic State. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire, first on the region, and then on the entire world. They just disagree among themselves who will be the ruler of that empire. In this deadly Game of Thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel; no peace for Christians, Jews, or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed; no rights for women, no freedom for anyone. So when it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.

RUSH: None of that’s deniable. I mean, every bit of that is right on the money, but you would not hear those words uttered by anybody in this administration. These words are considered disrespectful to Iran! These words are considered to be inflammatory! Dangerous, irresponsible rhetoric, it is said to be. Yet everything in it is true. “One calls itself the Islamic State. One calls itself the Islamic Republic. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire, first in the region, then on the entire world.” Undeniable. They’ve said so! It’s not a matter of opinion. In he next bite, Netanyahu compares Iran to ISIS with nukes.

NETANYAHU: The difference is that ISIS is armed with butcher knives, captured weapons, and YouTube, whereas Iran could soon be armed with intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear bombs. We always remember — I’ll say it one more time — the greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle but lose the war. We can’t let that happen.

RUSH: But we are on the way to permitting it to happen. Undeniable, that statement is, too. We’re on the way to permitting it to happen. Have to take a break. There’s more of this, for those of you who didn’t get a chance to see it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Another great point by Netanyahu here about the deal, the Obama deal, the American deal, that it’s so bad because Iran can get the nuclear bomb — get this. Iran can get the bomb by either breaking this deal or following it. What kind of deal is that?

NETANYAHU: Iran could get to the bomb by violating the deal. But the second major concession creates an even greater danger, that Iran could get to the bomb by keeping the deal, because virtually all the restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will automatically expire in about a decade. Now, a decade may seem like a long time in the political life, but it’s the blink of an eye in the life of a nation. It’s blink of an eye in the life of our children. This deal has two major concessions. One, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program. And, two, lifting the restrictions on that program in about a decade. That’s why this deal is so bad. It doesn’t block Iran’s path to the bomb; it paves Iran’s path to the bomb.

RUSH: This is a huge statement in this speech. I mean, this speech is a nuclear bomb, in a sense. This was a direct attack on the people who have put this deal together. The power here is profound, especially when you realize that the Regime had been warning Netanyahu not to do this in the days leading up to it. Don’t you dare discuss the inner workings and the details of the deal. Netanyahu, fearless. He did it anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’ll start in San Diego with Simon. I’m glad you waited, sir. You’re up first today. It’s great to have you here.

CALLER: Thank you, sir, for all that you do. My point is: With Iran’s goals, there’s no way that they’re not gonna make a nuclear weapon. Their view of the world is they need it to protect themselves, and they’ll use it as a way to project their power. So the idea that some kind of negotiation would make them stop, I just don’t see them accepting that. They’re just like North Korea or Red China or the Soviet Union.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: They need it and they believe they have to have a nuclear weapon.

RUSH: Right. See, this is one of Netanyahu’s points today, and one of the comments he made I think has been somewhat overlooked. I think by the time they get to the chat shows tonight, this comment that I’m gonna remind everybody of is gonna be front and center. Right now, it’s being overlooked in favor of other things. What Netanyahu said was, “Look, you can have all the inspectors in the world, and they can go in there and spot all the things in the world, they could see it, they can find the violations, but they do not stop them.”

And he said, “Israel can now defend itself, and we will go it alone.” That, folks, was one of the most — as far as Obama’s concerned — threatening elements of this speech, because Netanyahu pledged, in the name of his country, to go it alone, if he has to. Netanyahu acknowledged that there isn’t any speech, there are no words theory gonna persuade Iran to give up their quest for the nuclear bomb. Netanyahu understands the world is not governed by the aggressive use of speeches. Obama was elected to office in 2008 on the premise that he had the power with his words to tame the world’s tyrants.

Have the world’s tyrants been tamed or are they laughing at us? Obama hasn’t tamed the world’s tyrants. Obama makes excuses for them! That’s another big contrast in this speech out there today. Netanyahu was like fearless in speaking up for his own country and explaining why his own country was worth saving. He promised and had no equivocation about the value of his own country and no equivocation about how he would go to save it and defend it. Contrast that to Obama, who, when he tells us about our enemies, we have to understand them.

He tells us we need to understand them, he tells us we need to understand and we need — like Marie Harf (impression), “Well, no, you just have to understand, they’re not really militant Islamists. They just don’t have jobs, and they have bad economy and so we need a jobs program for ISIS!” So we get from our administration excuses made for our enemies. It’s worse than that. Our administration tells us how or country is responsible for our enemies! Netanyahu didn’t do that. Netanyahu didn’t tell anybody Israel is to blame for Iran for ISIS.

Netanyahu said Iran is Iran, and Iran is responsible for themselves, and so is Israel, and we’re not gonna rely on words, and we’re not gonna rely on inspectors, and we don’t have to rely on anybody but ourselves. You see, Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t seem to have any empathy for Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu did not say anything like we hear from Obama and others in his administration which is, “Well, I’m sure that Germany thinks they’re exceptional, too, and I’m sure that the Austrians think they’re exceptional.”

And, “What would we have done if somebody told us we couldn’t build a nuclear weapon back when we did it? So who are we to tell the Iranians that they can’t have one?” That’s why the Obama administration approach here is, “Go ahead and let ‘em have it. Try to delay ‘em getting it for ten years,” big whoop, “but then persuade them never to use it.” That is the Obama administration policy. And they think their guy can do it with the power of his personality and his aura and his words. Netanyahu says, “Sorry, we can’t rely on that. We believe in prevention and we’ll do it ourselves if we have to.”

CALLER: I’m an avid listener but a first-time caller. I’m calling today to get your opinion on Israel and its possible response to Iran becoming a nuclear power. I’m glad to see that the prime minister is not misguided as to what the greatest threat facing his nation is. I never heard him mention climate change even once. Do you think it’s possible that Israel will find its back to the wall to the extent that a nuclear response –

RUSH: I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. He said that, and that, to me, is one of the most committed and powerful aspects of this speech today. He said that Israel, the Jewish state can now defend itself, and it will go it alone if they have to on this. There’s no question. One other thing here. On the Netanyahu Facebook page there’s a picture of Bibi while giving the speech today with this headline: “The days when the Jewish people remain passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over.”

Netanyahu made it clear, the Obama deal is a loser. The Iranians can get a nuclear weapon either by following the deal or breaking it. Stop and think of that. That is so simple, it’s profound. The Iranians, I mean, this is a no-lose for them. They get a nuclear bomb by either following the deal or breaking the deal. James Rosen at Fox News just reported 75% of Iran’s centrifuges have been installed during Obama and Hillary and John Kerry’s watch. You need centrifuges to prepare the uranium and the polonium-210 and all the rest of the stuff.

Seventy-five percent of the centrifuges Iran needs to do this have been installed on the Obama watch, have been installed with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and John Kerry as secretary of state, 75%, three-fourths of what they need to get there has happened during this administration. I don’t think there’s any mistake what Netanyahu was saying today. They’re not gonna put up with this, and they’re not gonna be talked out of defending themselves. And if they have to go it alone they will. He came here to tell everybody, and Pelosi ends up in tears.

Hill.com: “Pelosi ‘Near Tears’ at Bibi ‘Insult.’” Pelosi said, “That is why, as one who values the US/Israel relationship, and loves Israel, I was near tears throughout the prime minister’s speech, saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States … saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation.”

She’s an idiot. We are not preventing nuclear proliferation. We are sanctioning it. We are allowing Iran, in ten years, to get where they need to be to produce a bomb, and we’re relying on the power of our speeches to persuade them not to do it, not to use them.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/rush-netanyahu-hit-obama-direct-punch-86835/feed/0Fox News star: ‘Is this White House anti-Semitic?’http://www.teaparty.org/fox-news-star-white-house-anti-semitic-86833/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fox-news-star-white-house-anti-semitic
http://www.teaparty.org/fox-news-star-white-house-anti-semitic-86833/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:56:01 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86833‘There has been a history of things. This has not happened in a vacuum’ (Breitbart) – On Monday’s “Outnumbered” on the Fox News Channel, co-host Andrea Tantaros raised the possibility of President Barack Obama and his administration are anti-Semitic due to their policy regarding Israel on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address ...

‘There has been a history of things. This has not happened in a vacuum’

(Breitbart) – On Monday’s “Outnumbered” on the Fox News Channel, co-host Andrea Tantaros raised the possibility of President Barack Obama and his administration are anti-Semitic due to their policy regarding Israel on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress.

Tantaros referred to Obama’s post statements and associations as cause to ask that question.

“Remember President Obama ripping [Benjamin] Netanyahu to Nicolas Sarkozy,” Tantaros said. “Also, saying Jerusalem needed to go to the ’67 borders. The president’s friendship with intellectual radical Rashid Khalidi – there has been a history of things. This has not happened in a vacuum. It is time to ask the question — is this White House anti-Semitic?”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/fox-news-star-white-house-anti-semitic-86833/feed/1Paul Ryan: Obama Made a ‘HUGE Mistake’ ‘Dissing’ Prime Minister Netanyahuhttp://www.teaparty.org/paul-ryan-obama-made-huge-mistake-dissing-prime-minister-netanyahu-86831/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=paul-ryan-obama-made-huge-mistake-dissing-prime-minister-netanyahu
http://www.teaparty.org/paul-ryan-obama-made-huge-mistake-dissing-prime-minister-netanyahu-86831/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:52:43 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86831(Biz Pac Review) – The Obama administration’s open hostility to Tuesday’s speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint meeting of Congress was a “huge mistake” that just made Americans more aware of the “appeasement” the president’s Iran policy represents. That was the take from Rep. Paul Ryan during a Fox News interview, ...

]]>(Biz Pac Review) – The Obama administration’s open hostility to Tuesday’s speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a joint meeting of Congress was a “huge mistake” that just made Americans more aware of the “appeasement” the president’s Iran policy represents.

That was the take from Rep. Paul Ryan during a Fox News interview, where he noted that the media attention in the nation’s capital for Netanyahu’s speech was magnified by the storm of criticism unleashed by top administration officials since House Speaker John Boehner invited Netanyahu in January.

Ryan said leaks from the administration about ongoing talks with Iran to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon show President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are getting close to a “bad deal” with Iran.

“If he gets this wrong, … this will be among the most spectacular of the failures of Obama foreign policy,” Ryan said.

“The last thing we want to do is get a bad deal … appeasement that leads to a nuclear Iran.”

Actually, the last thing the Obama administration wants is for the American people to be aware of what a bad deal it’s getting.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/paul-ryan-obama-made-huge-mistake-dissing-prime-minister-netanyahu-86831/feed/1Muslim Costco Employee Refuses to Touch Pork; Sues After Getting Transferred to Different Departmenthttp://www.teaparty.org/muslim-costco-employee-refuses-touch-pork-sues-getting-transferred-different-department-86829/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=muslim-costco-employee-refuses-touch-pork-sues-getting-transferred-different-department
http://www.teaparty.org/muslim-costco-employee-refuses-touch-pork-sues-getting-transferred-different-department-86829/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:51:20 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86829(Biz Pac Review) – A Muslim former employee has filed a lawsuit against Costco accusing the the wholesale giant of discriminating against him because he refused to handle pork or alcohol products. The man, Jean Camara, told ABC 7 New York that he was moved from cashier’s assistant to gathering carts outside when he informed his employers that he couldn’t work with ...

]]>(Biz Pac Review) – A Muslim former employee has filed a lawsuit against Costco accusing the the wholesale giant of discriminating against him because he refused to handle pork or alcohol products.

The man, Jean Camara, told ABC 7 New York that he was moved from cashier’s assistant to gathering carts outside when he informed his employers that he couldn’t work with pork or alcohol due to his religious beliefs.

“Just because you have a different belief, that doesn’t give anybody the right to treat you different,” Camara said.

“We all share different beliefs so we all should be treated equally no matter what belief we have,” he added.

According to Camara, his superiors at the Brooklyn Costco never told him why he was reassigned — although it’s strange that he couldn’t figure that out on his own after complaining he couldn’t handle certain products.

He said he asked his bosses if he could work in the electronics department but his request was denied.

Camara filed a human rights complaint against the company and was fired 16 days later for “insubordinate conduct,” according to ABC 7.

“I think that as the case progresses in the trial we are in now, I think the facts are going to come out and they’re going to speak for themselves,” his attorney, Chauncey Henry, said.

“It’s not OK to discriminate against someone for their religion. It isn’t OK. It isn’t OK to treat them differently from others because of what they believe in,” Henry added.

“I think that everyone is entitled to the same treatment. I think that’s what this case is about.”

(Jerusalem Post) – Iran on Tuesday as “unacceptable” a demand by US President Barack Obama that Tehran freeze its sensitive nuclear activities for at least 10 years, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

“Obama’s stance … is expressed in unacceptable and threatening phrases … Iran will not accept excessive and illogical demands … Tehran will continue nuclear negotiations with the six powers,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted as saying by Fars.

In an interview with Reuters on Monday, Obama said Iran must commit to a verifiable halt of at least 10 years on sensitive nuclear work for a landmark atomic deal to be reached between Tehran and six major powers.

The United States and its European allies fear Iran wants to develop atomic bomb capability. Tehran says its program is for peaceful nuclear energy only.

Iran and the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany have set a deadline of late March for a framework agreement and June for a comprehensive final settlement that would curb Iran’s nuclear activity to ensure it cannot be put to bombmaking in return for the lifting of international sanctions that have harmed Iran’s economy.

Iran wants a swift lifting of the sanctions in any deal curbing its nuclear program — one of the sticking points in high-level negotiations continuing in Switzerland this week.

Obama’s comment about the time frame for a freeze represents one of the US government’s strongest signals yet of its red line for a successful agreement.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/iran-says-rejects-obamas-demand-10-year-nuclear-work-halt-86816/feed/1Gutierrez: Chicago Has Made Sure ‘We No Longer Cooperate with Immigration Authorities’http://www.teaparty.org/gutierrez-chicago-made-sure-longer-cooperate-immigration-authorities-86823/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gutierrez-chicago-made-sure-longer-cooperate-immigration-authorities
http://www.teaparty.org/gutierrez-chicago-made-sure-longer-cooperate-immigration-authorities-86823/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:33:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86823(CNS News) – Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) says Chicago is the friendliest immigrant city in the nation since they, “made sure that we no longer cooperate with immigration authorities when it comes to the deportation or separation of our families.” Gutierrez made the comments while speaking to the City Club of Chicagolast week. “On immigration, ...

]]>(CNS News) – Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) says Chicago is the friendliest immigrant city in the nation since they, “made sure that we no longer cooperate with immigration authorities when it comes to the deportation or separation of our families.”

Gutierrez made the comments while speaking to the City Club of Chicagolast week.

“On immigration, I want to let everybody know, the city of Chicago is the friendliest immigrant city in the nation and Rahm Emmanuel had a lot to do with that,” Gutierrez said.

“He made sure that we no longer cooperate with immigration authorities when it comes to the deportation and separation of our families by using city structures. Nobody can be asked when you enroll your kid in a school or seek out care because you’re injured what your immigration status is and that’s the law in the city of Chicago.”

Gutierrez continued, “Only in the city of Chicago can you graduate from high school with a ‘B’ average and be guaranteed that you are going to be able to go on to your next two years of college for free – only in Chicago – even if you’re undocumented.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/gutierrez-chicago-made-sure-longer-cooperate-immigration-authorities-86823/feed/3Huckabee: Can’t Trust Obama, Can’t Trust Iranhttp://www.teaparty.org/huckabee-cant-trust-obama-cant-trust-iran-86821/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=huckabee-cant-trust-obama-cant-trust-iran
http://www.teaparty.org/huckabee-cant-trust-obama-cant-trust-iran-86821/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:32:13 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86821(CNS News) – Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he distrusts the Obama administration’s nuclear negotiations with the untrustworthy Iranians, just as Israeli Prime Minister Binaymin Netanyahu does: “Well, this is a president who told us we could keep our doctors, we could keep our health insurance, they’re going to get to the bottom of ...

“Well, this is a president who told us we could keep our doctors, we could keep our health insurance, they’re going to get to the bottom of Benghazi. And that was all about a video. We were told they’re going to get to the bottom of the IRS scandal. We’re going to get to the bottom of the Fast and Furious.

“I’m sorry, but the president has no credibility when it comes to saying, look, you can trust me. Actually, we can’t. And the truth is, we certainly can’t trust the Iranians.

“And whatever legacy the president wants to have by saying, look, I made a deal with the Iranians — it can’t be a good deal because you can’t trust a government that is vowed openly and publicly that it’s going to wipe another nation off the face of the earth.”

Huckabee told Fox News’s Megyn Kelly Monday night, “The Iranians are just crazy enough to use a nuclear weapon if they had one.”

Huckabee said that’s why Netanyahu is speaking to Congress on Tuesday — despite the negative political fallout in his own country.

“And anyone who thinks he’s doing this in advance of the Israeli elections because it’s good for him, well, they haven’t been reading the Israeli press. Megyn, I was just there. I’m telling you, this is very destructive to him politically.

“He’s doing it because he realizes that a nuclear Iran is really a death sentence to Israel. And it is a proliferation of nuclear arms across the Middle East. And he’s risking his political life because he values not just the future of Israel but really the future of civilization.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday that negotiators deserve “the benefit of the doubt” in attempts to secure a nuclear agreement with Iran, but Huckabee said it’s not enough to simply curb Iran’s nuclear program:

“This is like saying they had 19,000 centrifuges, we’re going to only let them have 6,000. This is the equivalent saying, we’re not going to let a pyromaniac have a blow torch but we’ll let them have, you know, a cigarette lighter and a can of gasoline. You just don’t put those kind of opportunities in the hands of crazy people who would use those destructive forces.”

Huckabee said even those who disagree with Netanyahu accepting the Republicans’ invitation to address Congress should listen to the speech.

“If you don’t agree with it, then in a free country you can certainly say that you disagree with it and you can explain why. But to not listen — to say we want diversity of views as long as they agree with ours — shouldn’t we want more information, not less information? Shouldn’t we want more voices speaking to this, not fewer voices?

“Look, if you want to go and fold your arms and say I’m not going to stand up and I’m not even going to applaud, knock yourself out. Go for it. But I think the prime minister’s speech is an important speech, certainly for members of Congress, because they need to monitor this deal. But, Megyn, this is important for all the American people and for all the people of the free world who value their liberty and who believe that there is a threat to it from the Iranians.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/huckabee-cant-trust-obama-cant-trust-iran-86821/feed/1Texas Town Fires Entire Police Department, Crime Drops by 61%http://www.teaparty.org/texas-town-fires-entire-police-department-crime-drops-61-86818/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=texas-town-fires-entire-police-department-crime-drops-61
http://www.teaparty.org/texas-town-fires-entire-police-department-crime-drops-61-86818/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:29:10 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86818Replaced all cops with private security (Infowars) – A Texas town has proven that there is a solution to out of control cops after it replaced the entire police department with private security officers and saw a remarkable drop in crime by 61%. Sharpstown, located southwest of Houston, decided in 2012 that regular public policing ...

(Infowars) – A Texas town has proven that there is a solution to out of control cops after it replaced the entire police department with private security officers and saw a remarkable drop in crime by 61%.

Sharpstown, located southwest of Houston, decided in 2012 that regular public policing was proving wholly ineffective, and opted not to renew a contract with the constable’s office.

Instead the town’s civic leaders hired private security agents with the company SEAL Security Solutions, and devised a more effective policing strategy.

“Since we’ve been in there, an independent crime study that they’ve had done [indicates] we’ve reduced the crime by 61%” in just 20 months, James Alexander, Director of Operations for SEAL told reporters with guns.com.

That is an estimated slashing of criminal activity of almost two thirds in just over a year and a half.

Alexander believes that the reason for such a dramatic drop has come with more sensible policing in areas that need it the most.

“We do directed patrols, meaning we don’t just put an officer out there and say ‘here, go patrol.’ We look at recent crime stats, and we work off of those crime stats.” he states.

“So if we have hotspots in those areas say for that month, we focus and concentrate our efforts around those hotspots.”

He also believes that officers should spend less time filling in paperwork and more time engaging effectively for a safer community.

“On a constable patrol contract, it’s either a 70/30 or an 80/20. Meaning they say they patrol your community 70 percent of the time, [while] 30 percent of the time they use for running calls out of your area or writing reports.”

According to the report, Sharpstown is saving $200,000 per year over their previous contract with the constable, and they now have more patrol officers for less money.

Of course, a further incentive for employing private police is that there are less bureaucratic black holes to hide within, and there is more accountability. A claim against an officer means a claim against them personally and against the entire company, rather than against faceless government pen pushers.

In addition, companies like SEAL operate as businesses, and as such are profit driven to provide the most efficient service. It is highly inefficient to police with brute force and to incur endless lawsuits. Taxpayer dollars would simply not be available to fund them.

Thirdly, private security companies are less likely to be handed, and also less willing to receive, hordes of unwanted and outdated military equipment, as so many police departments around the country have in recent times.

The report notes that over 70 communities in Harris County now have contracts with SEAL. “They’re less expensive, better at crime prevention, they do not target citizens for revenue, and, best of all, each officer is personally accountable for his or her actions.” the report states.

“The rest of the country would do well to closely examine the success of Sharpstown’s implementation of private security.” it concludes.

The scale of police brutality and corruption in the US is off the charts. It is impossible to even attempt to keep track of. Perhaps a little healthy competition would make police departments think more about their policing policies, who they employ, and how they train them to do their jobs.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/wow-democrats-lash-netanyahu-tell-go-home-call-child-86809/feed/1Boehner, Priebus Ex-Chiefs of Staff Air Ads to Pressure Conservatives Resisting Executive Amnestyhttp://www.teaparty.org/boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-2-86810/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-2
http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-2-86810/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:04:59 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86810(Breitbart) – The former chiefs of staff to House Speaker John Boehner and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus are part of a concerted effort to target House conservatives with advertisements aimed at pressuring them to cave to President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and fund it in its entirety through the end of the fiscal ...

]]>(Breitbart) – The former chiefs of staff to House Speaker John Boehner and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus are part of a concerted effort to target House conservatives with advertisements aimed at pressuring them to cave to President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and fund it in its entirety through the end of the fiscal year.

“An outside group aligned with House GOP leadership will spend $400,000 this week to urge dozens of conservative House Republicans to vote for Department of Homeland Security funding — a new and more aggressive phase in the legislative battle among Republicans that’s consuming Capitol Hill,” Politico wrote about a new effort from American Action Network, a group whose board is home to power players including Boehner’s ex-chief of staff Barry Jackson and immediate previous RNC chief of staff Mike Shields.

“The 30-second spot will run at least 50 times in each district — on broadcast, in prime slots — Tuesday and Wednesday as the House is expected to take up a DHS funding bill,” Politico wrote.

The group says the ad campaign, which also includes radio ads on nationally syndicated shows and digital ads in dozens of other districts represented by House conservatives, is the opening salvo of a larger effort to help Republican leaders pass center-right legislation. American Action Network says it will spend millions of dollars to contact voters in the coming months. The move appears designed to give Boehner cover to end the months-long impasse over homeland security funding.

It’s going to be nearly impossible for Boehner or Priebus to separate the efforts of this group from their own, as Jackson and Shields are members of the two top Republicans’ respective inner circles. It comes as Boehner, meanwhile, is trying to shift blame to anyone else for the coming DHS funding cave that will enable Obama’s executive amnesty. Meanwhile, the environment for a potential coup against Boehner by Republican alternatives on Capitol Hill is improving.

Shields, who left Priebus’ team after the midterm election win to become executive director of AAN, said in a statement to Politico that the plans by the Boehner allies on the AAN board to hammer Republicans for fighting Obama’s executive amnesty will continue for as long as they need to in order to get them to back down.

“If this debate continues, we’ll keep the ads up,” Shields said. “If not, they’re going to be as significant as we can possibly get on broadcast while the debate is happening to educate the voters on this issue.”

AAN is one of the biggest supporters of amnesty, having lobbied Congress in favor of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill that failed in the last Congress. Other board members include former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), Thayer Lodging Group head and hotelier Fred Malek, former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, and several other lobbyists and former members of Congress from the establishment.

The advertisements’ content directly contradicts rhetoric from Boehner and Priebus.

“The House has acted. We’ve done our job. Senate Democrats are the ones putting us in this precarious position,” Boehner said a couple weeks ago on Fox News Sunday.

Before the midterm elections, Priebus promised Republican voters that members of the new Republican majority—if conservatives stepped up to deliver the elections to the GOP, would defund Obama’s executive amnesty, something he even called “un-American.”

“While I can’t speak for the legislature, I’m very confident we will stop that,” Priebus said back then. “We will do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen: Defunding, going to court, injunction. You name it. It’s wrong. It’s illegal. And for so many reasons, and just the basic fabric of this country, we can’t allow it to happen and we won’t let it happen. I don’t know how to be any stronger than that. I’m telling you, everything we can do to stop it we will.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-2-86810/feed/4Gov’t Union: Obama’s Weak Immigration Policy Is Inviting An Attack Worse Than 9/11http://www.teaparty.org/govt-union-obamas-weak-immigration-policy-inviting-attack-worse-911-86773/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=govt-union-obamas-weak-immigration-policy-inviting-attack-worse-911
http://www.teaparty.org/govt-union-obamas-weak-immigration-policy-inviting-attack-worse-911-86773/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:02:12 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86773(The Daily Caller) - President Barack Obama’s lax immigration policies are inviting another massive jihad attack similar to the 9/11 atrocity, says Kenneth Palinkas, president of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees’ union. Obama’s deputies are “lessening the vetting of each and every alien who applies for permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.,” Palinkas ...

]]>(The Daily Caller) - President Barack Obama’s lax immigration policies are inviting another massive jihad attack similar to the 9/11 atrocity, says Kenneth Palinkas, president of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees’ union.

Obama’s deputies are “lessening the vetting of each and every alien who applies for permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.,” Palinkas said in a statement Tuesday.

“By not scrutinizing each and every applicant to the fullest extent possible to ensure America’s security, we invite an even more catastrophic event than what occurred on 09/11/2001,” he said.

Obama’s rollback of security checks means that “it is more than likely that any attack from terrorists will come from within the borders of the U.S., and it is further likely that ISIS or Al Qaeda would try to launch these attacks by obtaining a visa or working with elements already here on visas,” he said.

Numerous legal immigrants have launched, or tried to launch, jihad attacks in the United States.

In April 2013, for example, two ethnic Chechen Muslim refugees detonated bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three victims. They also killed a cop as they fled.

This month, three more migrants were arrested in Brooklyn for planning jihad attacks in the United States.

“Our current immigration system leaves us vulnerable to terrorist threats and terrorism in general by providing entry avenues for people sworn to destroy America… We must remain diligent and not continue lessening our guard against extremists who seek to destroy this nation,” Palinkas said.

“We must not govern based on politically correct clichés about relaxed immigration that only serve to weaken the country.”

The statement was released shortly before Sen. Jeff Sessions held his first hearing on immigration issues at the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest on Tuesday.

Sessions is a major advocate for reduced immigration, and was recently bumped from the top slot in the Senate’s budget committee.

The hearing is about the administration’s management of the USCIS agency.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/govt-union-obamas-weak-immigration-policy-inviting-attack-worse-911-86773/feed/1Bibi Rocks Washingtonhttp://www.teaparty.org/bibi-rocks-washington-86805/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bibi-rocks-washington
http://www.teaparty.org/bibi-rocks-washington-86805/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:01:37 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86805(Breitbart) - Introduction: Israeli Prime Minister addresses Congress on Tuesday, March 3. His topic, as per Speaker of the House John Boehner, is to explain “the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.” The invitation was announced after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in January, during ...

]]>(Breitbart) - Introduction: Israeli Prime Minister addresses Congress on Tuesday, March 3. His topic, as per Speaker of the House John Boehner, is to explain “the grave threats radical Islam and Iran pose to our security and way of life.” The invitation was announced after President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in January, during which he vowed to veto any new Iran sanctions bills. Obama has also downplayed the threat of terror and declined to tackle “radical Islam.”

Crucially, Obama has also promised to veto any legislation requiring him to submit any deal with Iran to Congress. The Boehner invitation is a response to that threat, as well as to Obama’s broader seizure of the constitutional powers of the legislature. For Netanyahu, the address is a chance to have a say before the end of negotiations that could decide Israel’s future, yet from which Israel has been excluded–and which will likely leave Iran’s nuclear program near “breakout.”

Critics have called the address an attempt by Netanyahu to boost his prospects in Israel’s upcoming March 17 elections, as well as an unwelcome intervention in American politics. Netanyahu’s approval rating among Americans is near an all-time high, while his party has a good chance to return to power. 56 Democrats (8 Senators, 47 Representatives) are boycotting, the Vice President and Secretary of State have found other places to be, and Obama says he will not watch.

The controversy has made Netanyahu’s speech the most anticipated address in years, and perhaps the most important oration on geopolitical affairs since Ronald Reagan’s speech at the Berlin Wall in 1987. Much will depend on how the speech is received, and whether Netanyahu introduces new information–such as the terms of the Iran deal, which the administration is urging him not to disclose. Yet the fact that he is speaking at all suggests the urgency of the issues.

The potential Iran deal, according to President Obama himself, would allow the regime to retain most of its enrichment capacity, and to become a nuclear power after ten years. Those are steep concessions that many are calling a surrender–and they are terms Netanyahu has indicated he is not willing to tolerate. For Israel, there is a sense of impending danger, especially as Iran has expanded its regional presence in recent weeks–right up to Israel’s frontier in the Golan Heights.

The speech is historic in one other sense. Not since the days of antiquity has a Jewish leader of any sort been granted an opportunity to plead the Jewish people’s case as they have faced what some fear is imminent disaster. The events are parallel to those described in the Book of Esther, some 2,500 years ago, when the Jews of Persia were saved from doom. That miracle is celebrated in the Jewish holiday of Purim, which happens to fall on Thursday–a backdrop to the speech.

12:45 p.m. EST: The boycotting Democrats are staging their own press conference. The news networks are ignoring them, which is really striking–except for Fox News, which is ripping the boycotters. The purpose of the conference appears to be to defend President Obama and to undermine Prime Minister Netanyahu. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) rips Netanyahu for his testimony in 2002 in favor of the Iraq war. She makes the mistake of slamming his prediction that Iranians would rise up against their government (which actually happened). She then loses herself in her prepared text.

12:40 p.m. EST: Caroline May reports on the closing of the speech–and Nancy Pelosi’s evident frustration: “Speech finished shortly before noon and the House chamber erupted in a standing ovation on both sides. Democrats began to trickle out of the chamber early as the applause continued, including Pelosi who looked infuriated. Republicans, too, began to leave as Netanyahu left the podium. More than three-and-a-half minutes later, House Speaker John Boehner hit the gavel and the applause ceased.”

12:15 p.m. EST: The Washington Post posts the full transcript of Netanyahu’s speechhere.

12:11 p.m. EST: David Horovitz, the editor of the Times of Israel, who had been quite critical of the whole idea of the speech beforehand, tells CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: ““Many in Israel will feel he gave the speech of his life.” Another CNN analyst adds: “I think he helped himself.” Netanyahu’s critics seem unanimous in favor. Gloria Borger observes: “He praised Obama before he buried Obama.” (I don’t think that was his aim, though.)

12:08 p.m. EST: Fareed Zakaria, who had scorned Netanyahu’s speech beforehand, is as impressed as Sen. Feinstein, telling Wolf Blitzer: “The chances [of an Iran deal] just went to 60/40 against. This was a very good speech, from the Prime Minister’s perspective.” He praised the composition of the speech. A clear win for Netanyahu, if the reactions of his more serious critics are any sign. This is why opponents avoided listening.

12:00 p.m. EST California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who went to the speech despite blasting Netanyahu in advance, tells CNN: “I think it was a very powerful speech.” She adds that Netanyahu did not say what would happen if there was no deal, or what Israel would find agreeable. CNN’s Dana Bash finds herself forced to correct Feinstein by quoting Netanyahu’s conditions. Feinstein does not exactly respond to those points.

11:55 a.m. EST: The takeaways from Netanyahu’s speech: He made the case against the deal the Obama administration is currently discussing with Iran. He proposed that sanctions continue until Iran changes its overall foreign policy. He pledged that Israel would act alone if it needed to do so. He suggested that the U.S. could find its way to a better deal because Iran needs a deal more than the rest of the world does.

11:51 a.m. EST: Netanyahu closes with a quote from Moses in Deuteronomy, before the Jewish people enter the Land of Israel: “Be strong and courageous!” (Deut. 31:6) He adds, as the chamber bursts into a final standing ovation: “May God bless the State of Israel and may God bless the United States of America.”

11:49 a.m. EST: Netanyahu acknowledges Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in the gallery. He talks about the importance of “never again”: “The days when the Jewish people remain passive in the face of genocidal enemies–those days are over!” Standing ovation and cheers. “I can promise you one more thing: even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.” He adds that he knows the U.S. stands with Israel. More ovations and cheers.

11:47 a.m. EST: Caroline May, at the press gallery inside the chamber, reports: “Of note, Netanyahu is not speaking off a teleprompter. His speech is written in large letters on white pages resting on the podium.”

11:45 a.m. EST: “Now we’re being told that the only alternative to this deal is war. That’s just not true. The alternative to a bad deal is a much better deal.” Netanyahu outlines what a “better deal” would look like–including dismantling Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, and maintaining sanctions. He acknowledges that such a deal might not be one that Israel would like, but it would be one that Israel “could live with.” He warns that there are two paths–one leads to a bad deal that will encourage Iranian aggression and lead “inevitably” to war. The other, he says, is a better deal, and quotes Robert Frost: it is the path “less traveled.”

11:42 a.m. EST: Netanyahu then turns to the argument that there is “no alternative” to the deal because Iran is already too far advanced to becoming a nuclear power. He argues that “Iran’s nuclear program can be rolled back…by insisting on a better deal” and maintaining pressure. He says that the West should call Iran’s threat–“bluff”–to walk away from talks, “because they need a deal even more than you do.”

“This is a bad deal. It is a very bad deal. We’re better off without it.”

11:39 a.m. EST: Netanyahu points out that hope for a deal with Iran hinges on the false hope that Iran will change in the future. However, the deal removes any incentive for the regime to reform: “Why should Iran change for the better when it can enjoy the best of both worlds–aggression abroad, prosperity at home?”

He adds that the deal will encourage Arab states to arm themselves with nuclear weapons against the possibility of Iranian aggression: “This deal won’t be a farewell to arms–it will be a farewell to arms control.”

He adds that restrictions on Iran should only be lifted if Iran complies with three conditions:

first, stop its agression against its neighbors in the Middle East;

second, stop supporting terrorism around the world; and

third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel–the one and only Jewish state.

He adds: “If Iran wants to be treated like a normal country, let it act like a normal country!” Standing ovation.

11:35 a.m. EST: “Iran could get to a bomb by keeping the deal,” Netanyahu warns, and adds that Iran is already boasting that it intends to build more centrifuges. It could, he says, do so “legitimately” under the deal, citing “my long-time friend, John Kerry, the Secretary of State.”

The chamber is quiet. This is not a rally, as was Netanyahu’s 2011 speech. This is Netanyahu telling the hard truth to America’s leaders.

11:32 a.m. EST: Netanyahu warns that mere inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities will not be enough. He cites the example of North Korea, noting that inspections have failed to prevent other rogue states from becoming nuclear powers. He cites the recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is not coming clean about its military nuclear program, and reiterates that Iran cannot be trusted.

11:29 a.m. EST: Now for the Iranian deal: “That deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. It will all but guarantee that Iran gets those nuclear weapons. Lots of them.” Netanyahu proceeds to discuss the terms of the deal that are already “a matter of public record,” including the “vast nuclear infrastructure” that the deal will retain, allowing Iran “a short breakout time” to a nuclear weapon.

11:26 a.m. EST: Netanyahu tackles the question of whether Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is really a “moderate.” He notes the human rights abuses that have continued–or worsened–under Rouhani, and warns that Iran will always be America’s enemy. He also warns that the Shia-Sunni, Iran-ISIS spat does not mean Iran will suddenly become a regional partner: “When it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”

11:23 a.m. EST:“We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation, and terror.”

11:20 a.m. EST: Netanyahu turns to the core of his speech: the Iranian nuclear program. He talks about the historical and Biblical precedent of Purim, when the Jewish people were threatened by another Persian enemy. He reads directly from the tweets of Iranian-backed Hezbollah to destroy all the Jews of the world. He praises the people of Iran as heirs to a great civilization, but slams the post-1979 Iranian dictatorship. He notes Iran’s expansion throughout the region–“three tentacles of terror”–including its proxy takeover of Yemen–“just last week!”–and recounts Iran’s attacks against the United States itself.

11:15 a.m. EST: Netanyahu begins by acknowledging Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and by expressing regret for any sense in which the speech has been interpreted as a political gesture. He draws a standing ovation after acknowledging that both political parties support Israel. The relationship “has always been above politics,” he says, and must remain so. He thanks presidents from “Harry Truman to Barack Obama.”

11:10 a.m. EST: Netanyahu has entered to extended standing ovations and cheers. He takes his place at the podium and is cheered again. The most important speech in American history–in years; in world history–in decades; in Jewish history–in millennia; and it is about to begin.

11:05 a.m. EST: As the world awaits Netanyahu, leading voices in the Arab media continue to line up behind Netanyahu and against Obama. Faisal J. Abbas, Editor-in-Chief of Al Arabiya English, has published an op-ed entitled, “President Obama, listen to Netanyahu on Iran.”

11:00 a.m. EST: Caroline May reports: “As Members of the Senate file into the House chamber both the Democratic and Republican sides looked filled, even packed. The Democrats who said they would not come appear to not have made much of a dent optically.”

10:55 a.m. EST:As Netanyahu prepares to enter Congress, to cheers and handshakes, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria attempt to spin against him. Amanpour tries to argue that associating Netanyahu with Churchill is wrong because Churchill preferred “jaw-jaw” to “war-war.” Zakaria cites a familiar left-wing talking point about Netanyahu being wrong in the past about the timeline to an Iranian nuclear weapon, en route to claiming Netanyahu’s speech is motivated by politics, not security. During the period Zakaria cites, the Clinton administration was wrong about the timeline to India and Pakistan developing nuclear weapons–and both did.

This from the world’s premier sponsor of state-sponsored terror, with proxy armies involved in conflicts throughout the Middle East, most recently helping topple the government of Yemen.

10:35 a.m. EST: Rep. Luis Gutierrez struggles to explain to CNN’s Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer why he is boycotting Netanyahu’s speech. He says he is “skipping,” not boycotting, the speech. He is also claiming that he will be meeting with “friends from AIPAC” to have a discussion later. Gutierrez also states that he does not want Congress to be used as a political backdrop in another country’s internal politics, suggesting that Netanyahu is mainly interested in his election back home. Tapper and Blitzer, rightly, are skeptical.

10:25 a.m. EST: Netanyahu has arrived at the Capitol with his motorcade, according to CNN.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, in the Purim spirit, has added some levity to the occasion:

In the video, McConnell addresses what Netanyahu is expected to cover in his speech to a joint meeting of Congress.

“The Prime Minister’s visit comes at a critical moment in U.S.-Israeli relations,” McConnell says. “Iran’s campaign to expand its sphere of influence across the Middle East threatens the interests of both of our countries; and Prime Minister Netanyahu is singularly capable of explaining the threat Iran’s nuclear capability poses to Israel, America, and the world.”

He continues on to urge that Congress “receive our ally warmly and respectfully” and continue to work with Israel to address the nuclear threat.

“Israel stood with us before September 11, 2001, and Israel stands with us today as the threat of radical Islamic terrorism has spread. It is an honor to welcome this friend of the American people,” he says.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T49y1fmdfxY

10:00 a.m. EST: It’s a tale of two meetings. Caroline May reports: “House Leadership’s weekly press conference has been cancelled to allow leaders time to get to the escort committee to welcome the Prime Minister following the GOP’s conference meeting. According to a spokeswoman the meeting is also expected to go long.” However, President Obama will be on a conference call from the White House Situation Room with European leaders during Netanyahu’s speech, according to Politico–a statement of defiance, and a hint that Israel may be isolated if Obama so chooses.

9:40 a.m. EST: Caroline May of Breitbart News reports: “The Capitol is packed with people and security guards. Access to certain areas have been restricted and where I usually breeze into the Capitol, I had a long wait to just get through the usual security check point. Lots of new faces up on the Hill this morning.”

A Breitbart News source waiting in line to enter with a gallery ticket writes: “At Capitol. Lots of protestors. Long line to get in Cannon office building. We’re in line…Lots of crazy nuts screaming at us.”

9:10 a.m. EST: A member of the public who has snagged one of the gallery tickets to Netanyahu’s address sent the following address to Breitbart News this morning: “In taxi with others going to speech. Lots of excitement and anticipation. Historical day with White House threatening Bibi not to mention any parts of deal. Just like Obamacare WH doesn’t want anyone to know what’s in agreement.”

8:50 a.m. EST: The whole world really will be watching Netanyahu’s speech–and parts of the Arab world will be cheering for him, as they have done for Israel with increasing openness since the Second Lebanon War. A Saudi columnist writes (translation via MEMRI):

Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.’s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury. I believe that Netanyahu’s conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents. Do you agree with me?

8:25 a.m. EST: It is worth noting that 3 out of 4 Democrats in Congress will, in fact, be attending the speech. Some, like California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have grumbled about it, but others, like fellow Californian Brad Sherman, are quite happy to hear Netanyahu speak. Sherman noted on Monday that he was “honored” to have been chosen to escort Netanyahu into the chamber for his address. Such gestures may preserve bipartisan support for Israel–for the most part.

7:55 a.m. EST: A group of Democrats who are boycotting the speech plan to stage their own “response” to Netanyahu’s address. No doubt they will reiterate their high dudgeon at Boehner and Netanyahu while claiming to support Israel. This is an important break for some of the Democrats, like Jan Schakowsky, who is finally liberated to say what she truly believes about Israel. However, those who refuse to listen to others can hardly claim they deserve to be listened to themselves.

7:45 a.m. EST: Speaker of the House John Boehner issues a press release: “This is an important message at an important time,” Boehner says, “and the Prime Minister is the perfect person to deliver it.” A guide to the speech on the Speaker’s website notes that Boehner will present Netanyahu with a bust of Winston Churchill–a slap to Obama, who notoriously returned a bust of the World War II-era British prime minister to the British embassy, then lied about having done so.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/bibi-rocks-washington-86805/feed/1Schlafly: Democrats Plan To Win Elections With Illegal Alien Voteshttp://www.teaparty.org/schlafly-democrats-plan-to-win-elections-with-illegal-alien-votes-86803/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=schlafly-democrats-plan-to-win-elections-with-illegal-alien-votes
http://www.teaparty.org/schlafly-democrats-plan-to-win-elections-with-illegal-alien-votes-86803/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:52:34 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86803(IBD) – The Obama Democrats have an audacious scheme for winning future elections. They just plan to import 5 million non-citizens and credential them as voters who will, in gratitude, vote Democratic. The way this devious formula works is stunningly simple. Just get the new Republican Congress (under Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell) ...

]]>(IBD) – The Obama Democrats have an audacious scheme for winning future elections. They just plan to import 5 million non-citizens and credential them as voters who will, in gratitude, vote Democratic.

The way this devious formula works is stunningly simple. Just get the new Republican Congress (under Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell) to pass a full-funding bill for Homeland Security without any exception for the funding of Obama’s illegal executive amnesty, which will allow Obama to give work permits, Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses to 5 million illegal aliens.

Once the 5 million so-called undocumented persons are given those valuable documents, there is no way to stop them from voting. That conclusion is drawn from the testimony of voting experts such as Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who told the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Feb. 12, “It’s a guarantee it will happen.”

Kobach’s warning was reinforced by testimony before the same committee by Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, who noted that the 5 million non-citizens would receive the “same documents that federal law requires the states to recognize as valid forms of identification for voter registration.” And once an alien registers to vote, Kobach said, it is “virtually impossible” to remove him from the voter rolls.

A third witness, Hans von Spakovsky, suggested that Social Security numbers issued to the 5 million illegal aliens should contain a code (such as “N” for non-citizen) that would instantly reveal their ineligibility to vote. But that simple fix would happen only if the Obama administration sincerely wants to keep them from voting, which I doubt.

In case the illegal aliens need spending money, they can collect a special handout from the U.S. taxpayers called Earned Income Tax Credit, which was designed to help parents who are working to support their families. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 3 that as soon as the illegal aliens receive their Social Security numbers, they will be allowed to go back and claim the EITC for up to three previous years in which they worked illegally.

What about the employers who illegally hired these people? They will get off scot-free, even though documentation clearly exists to prosecute and punish them.

Opponents of amnesty were cheered by the news that a federal judge issued an injunction against Barack Obama’s unconstitutional and illegal executive amnesty. The judge ruled in favor of the lawsuit filed by the new Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, along with 25 other states.

Obama’s outgoing attorney general, Eric Holder, has promised to appeal, and don’t expect any help from Holder’s replacement. His designated successor, Loretta Lynch, has already testified that she thinks Obama’s executive actions are perfectly legal.

Meanwhile, Obama’s 5 million amnestied illegals allowed to remain in our country can cash in on free health care plus schooling for their kids, including free lunch, breakfast and even dinner. I heard one public school superintendent complaining on television that he now has 40 languages spoken in his school, and nobody has yet added up the costs that this burden imposes on the taxpayers.

Of course, these illegals will become eligible for all sorts of America’s generous welfare benefits. This includes food stamps, Obamaphones, Medicaid, WIC, Social Security disability and dozens of other handouts.

Most important is that the illegals take jobs from American citizens. The Obama administration brags that the official unemployment rate is only 5.6%, but that number is misleading because it doesn’t include anyone who stopped looking for work four weeks ago.

As many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or extremely underemployed. If you work just one hour per week for a payment of at least $20, you can’t be counted as unemployed in the official government statistics.

The 5 million beneficiaries of Obama’s executive action would be added to the already high number of foreigners who enter our labor force each year. They include 1.1 million legal immigrants, 700,000 guest workers on temporary visas, plus roughly a half-million work permits, which the Obama administration has been handing out each year to various categories of non-citizens who are not eligible for employment under the law.

It’s no wonder that the Center for Immigration Studies could report last year that literally 100% of all net new jobs in the past decade have gone to immigrants and foreign workers. Fewer working-age Americans are employed today than in 2000.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/schlafly-democrats-plan-to-win-elections-with-illegal-alien-votes-86803/feed/2Gov’t Immigration Union: Obama Inviting An Attack Worse Than 9/11http://www.teaparty.org/govt-immigration-union-obama-inviting-attack-worse-911-86801/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=govt-immigration-union-obama-inviting-attack-worse-911
http://www.teaparty.org/govt-immigration-union-obama-inviting-attack-worse-911-86801/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:50:27 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86801(Daily Caller) – President Barack Obama’s lax immigration policies are inviting another massive jihad attack similar to the 9/11 atrocity, says Kenneth Palinkas, president of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees’ union. Obama’s deputies are “lessening the vetting of each and every alien who applies for permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.,” Palinkas ...

]]>(Daily Caller) – President Barack Obama’s lax immigration policies are inviting another massive jihad attack similar to the 9/11 atrocity, says Kenneth Palinkas, president of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees’ union.

Obama’s deputies are “lessening the vetting of each and every alien who applies for permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.,” Palinkas said in a statement Tuesday.

“By not scrutinizing each and every applicant to the fullest extent possible to ensure America’s security, we invite an even more catastrophic event than what occurred on 09/11/2001,” he said.

Obama’s rollback of security checks means that “it is more than likely that any attack from terrorists will come from within the borders of the U.S., and it is further likely that ISIS or Al Qaeda would try to launch these attacks by obtaining a visa or working with elements already here on visas,” he said.

Numerous legal immigrants have launched, or tried to launch, jihad attacks in the United States.

In April 2013, for example, two ethnic Chechen Muslim refugees detonated bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three victims. They also killed a cop as they fled.

This month, three more migrants were arrested in Brooklyn for planning jihad attacks in the United States.

“Our current immigration system leaves us vulnerable to terrorist threats and terrorism in general by providing entry avenues for people sworn to destroy America… We must remain diligent and not continue lessening our guard against extremists who seek to destroy this nation,” Palinkas said.

“We must not govern based on politically correct clichés about relaxed immigration that only serve to weaken the country.”

The statement was released shortly before Sen. Jeff Sessions held his first hearing on immigration issues at the Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest on Tuesday.

Sessions is a major advocate for reduced immigration, and was recently bumped from the top slot in the Senate’s budget committee.

The hearing is about the administration’s management of the USCIS agency.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/govt-immigration-union-obama-inviting-attack-worse-911-86801/feed/1Broadcast Networks Refuse to Carry Netanyahu’s Address to Congresshttp://www.teaparty.org/broadcast-networks-refuse-to-carry-netanyahus-address-to-congress-86798/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=broadcast-networks-refuse-to-carry-netanyahus-address-to-congress
http://www.teaparty.org/broadcast-networks-refuse-to-carry-netanyahus-address-to-congress-86798/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:44:49 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86798(Hollywood Reporter) – The major American broadcast networks declined to carry live Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress boycotted by many leading Democrats Tuesday, and early reaction to the speech in Hollywood seemed to signal a growing disenchantment with the Obama administration foreign policy, particularly the ongoing nuclear negotiations with ...

]]>(Hollywood Reporter) – The major American broadcast networks declined to carry live Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress boycotted by many leading Democrats Tuesday, and early reaction to the speech in Hollywood seemed to signal a growing disenchantment with the Obama administration foreign policy, particularly the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC and CNN, did broadcast the address, along with CSPAN. The major networks, along with multiple U.S. online news outlets, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, did live stream the speech on their websites.

In Hollywood, where support for a Democratic president and the state of Israel are as close as you come to consensus issues, reaction to Netanyahu’s visit and address was split.

“Everyone thinks Netanyahu should be sent to the moon with no return ticket,” said one Democratic activist. Another wondered cynically: “How much is [billionaire GOP donor] Sheldon Adelson paying him?”

But the prime minister does have supporters among Hollywood execs who believe Obama has been a disaster on foreign policy.

“I’m a supporter of Israel, and I think Netanyahu is more qualified to know what to do than Obama,” said one longtime Hollywood insider. “The one think I don’t agree with is putting nuclear arms in the hands of our most mortal enemy. They’re lunatics, and they’ll get them probably anyway. But I think giving them any nuclear capability is a dangerous thing for the whole world. They’re unpredictable. There’s never going to be a truce.

“I support Netanyahu over Obama, who I think has turned out to be a terrible president. I gave him all my money and my votes. I wish I could get it back.”

Longtime Democratic political consultant Donna Bojarsky told The Hollywood Reporter, ”No one is saying Netanyahu doesn’t have a right to disagree with American policy and try to lobby, as any government does and use appropriate means to lobby their own individual position. But this is out of the norm.”

Bojarsky added, “There are people in the Jewish community who are single-issue voters who see things solely through the prism of support for Israel. That is the main thing that drives their voting decisions. That is a small minority of Hollywood.”

Despite pressure from the Obama administration not to appear before Congress, Netanyahu told the American lawmakers that he felt a “profound obligation” speak out about Iran’s ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

“Right now, Iran could be hiding nuclear facilities that we don’t know about,” he said. “Iran has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted.”

He also noted that Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei has been going on Twitter to spew “the oldest hatred of anti-Semitism with the newest technology. He tweets that Israel must be annihilated. He tweets!” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister, who is locked in a tight contest for reelection at home, also warned the lawmakers not be deceived by Tehran’s willingness to fight Isis. “This,” he said, “is a case where the enemy of your enemy is your enemy.”

Essentially, Netanyahu was attempting to win over two audiences: One was the U.S Congress and public, who he hopes to convince to turn thumbs down on any deal with Tehran; the other was the Israeli electorate, which goes to the polls in just two weeks to elect a new Knesset.

The invitation to address Congress was extended by the Republican house speaker John Boehner without consulting President Obama, which has lent the entire event a novel partisan spin on what is traditionally an issue—Israel’s security—that is supported by cooperation on both sides of the isle. As a result, Obama has declined to receive Netanyahu at the White House and did not watch the speech. Both vice president Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry were pointedly “out of town” and an estimated 60 Democrats skipped the event.

For his part Netanyahu went out of his way to praise Obama, while delivering a detailed denunciation of a proposed agreement he called “so bad.” He also argued that Tehran-sponsored terrorism has killed more Americans than “anyone but Osama bin Laden.”

Netanyahu’s remarks, delivered in the Philadelphia-accented English that is a product of his American boyhood, were repeatedly interrupted by standing ovations by the assembled Senators and Representatives.

He told the lawmakers that a better deal could be achieved “by increasing the pressure on a very vulnerable regime,” made more so “by the collapse of the price of oil. . .They need a deal more than you do. . .This is a very bad deal and we’re better off without it.

“We told that the only alternative to this deal is war,” Netanyahu said, “but that is not true. The alternative to this deal is a better deal. . .One with which we can live, literally.”

Netanyahu singled out the presence of Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate Eli Wiesel, who was seated next to Harvard law professor Allen Dershowitz in the gallery. “Your work,” he said, addressing Wiesel directly, “give meaning to the phrase ‘never again’. . .The days are past when the Jewish community stands passively by in the face of genocide. . .We are capable of defending ourselves. Israel may have to stand alone, but it will stand. But I know that Israel does not stand alone. America stands with it and You stand with it,” he added speaking directly to the lawmakers.

At a minimum, the Prime Minster argued, such a better deal he urged Congress to seek would be proceeded by Iran’s agreement to change its global conduct by stopping support for terrorism and ceasing “to threaten the existence of the State of Israel.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/broadcast-networks-refuse-to-carry-netanyahus-address-to-congress-86798/feed/0Pelosi Exits Chamber Before Netanyahuhttp://www.teaparty.org/pelosi-exits-chamber-netanyahu-86795/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pelosi-exits-chamber-netanyahu
http://www.teaparty.org/pelosi-exits-chamber-netanyahu-86795/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:41:58 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86795(National Review) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) made her lack of enthusiasm for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech apparent throughout the remarks, applauding half-heartedly and then quickly exiting the chamber after the speech, before Netanyahu did. SPECIAL: Join the Tea Party REVOLUTION! The Obama Regime must be dismantled! .@Nancypelosi has appeared distressed in ...

]]>(National Review) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) made her lack of enthusiasm for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech apparent throughout the remarks, applauding half-heartedly and then quickly exiting the chamber after the speech, before Netanyahu did.

Pelosi faulted House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) for inviting Netanyahu in the first place.

“It is out of the ordinary that the speaker would decide that he would be inviting people to a joint session without any bipartisan consultation,” she said in January. “This presentation will take place within two weeks of the election in Israel, and I don’t think that’s appropriate for any country that the head of state would come here.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/pelosi-exits-chamber-netanyahu-86795/feed/0Obama Makes the Worst Trade in US History: Israel for Iranhttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-makes-worst-trade-us-history-israel-iran-86793/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-makes-worst-trade-us-history-israel-iran
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-makes-worst-trade-us-history-israel-iran-86793/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:38:31 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86793(The Blaze) – On the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, a despicable and disastrous betrayal has become clear: President Barack Obama has traded Israel for Iran. In the annals of the history of American foreign policy filled with pages of willful blindness, amorality and often State Department-led folly, there are ...

]]>(The Blaze) – On the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, a despicable and disastrous betrayal has become clear: President Barack Obama has traded Israel for Iran.

In the annals of the history of American foreign policy filled with pages of willful blindness, amorality and often State Department-led folly, there are few things more substantively and symbolically egregious than this fundamental transformation.

Consider the two nations of which we are speaking: One is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world, run by genocidal jihadist theocrats who in their Twelver Shiite theology seek to bring on the apocalypse by destroying the cradle of world civilization. The other is a bastion of liberty, plurality, dynamism, creativity and innovation, despite being surrounded by myriad hostile regimes.

In a sane world, it would be unthinkable, unconscionable, and un-American for us to turn on the state of Israel – the front line of Western civilization against barbarians who seek to take us, and who are fast taking themselves, back to the seventh century.

But then we are in year seven of the Obama presidency, an “Alice in Wonderland” world in which the seemingly perverse has become the norm, all in the name of regressive progressivism.

While Americans focus on the seen of beheadings or the destruction of ancient artifacts by Islamic State in high definition, that shock our collective conscience, the unseen is that Iran is quietly becoming the hegemon in the Middle East – and perhaps in the eyes of President Obama, America’s top ally in the region.

The easing of sanctions allowing billions of dollars of wealth to flow to a tottering economy and allowing thecontinued enrichment of uranium – will provide legitimacy to a terrorist regime and show the world that – like Neville Chamberlain’s England – America has chosen to appease evil rather than confront it.

Meanwhile, as DEBKA asserted in a recent memo, Iran has concurrently been “taking up forward positions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, where they are busy fashioning a Shiite Crescent that encircles Sunni Arab states as well as Israel.”

America under this president has consciously chosen to stand by all the while. As Tony Badran wrote in a stunning analysis at NOW [emphasis mine]:

In one of Obama’s several letters to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he reportedly presented finalizing the deal on the nuclear program as the gateway to a broader regional partnership, especially against Sunni extremist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS).

This partnership is central to Obama’s broader objective of extricating the U.S. from the Middle East and leaving in place a new security structure, of which Iran is a principal pillar. His tacit policy from Baghdad to Beirut has been to partner with Iranian-backed forces as the boots on the ground in the campaign against Sunni extremists. In Iraq and Lebanon especially, the U.S. partnership with Iranian assets and Iran-dominated state institutions has created a de facto condominium between the U.S. and Iran.

Lest we conclude the spread of Iran’s tentacles throughout the Levant primarily endangers Sunni jihadists, the title of a recent paper from MEMRI spells out the real casualty: “From The Mediterranean to the Golan, Iran Builds Active Front And Direct Military Presence On Israel’s Border To Deter Israel And Further Ideology Of Eliminating The Zionist Regime.”

MEMRI quotes from a columnist for the Lebanese Al-Akhbar paper:

Israel faces a fateful crisis. As much as it feared the Iranian nuclear program, it never imagined that Iran would be standing on its border even before its nuclear agreement with the Americans was complete. The Iranian threat to Israel is no longer theoretical…[t]he threat has become direct, practical and conventional.

President Obama’s strategy during this time, as DEBKA pithily put it, has been to make:

…sure Israel was well supplied with all its material security needs. This enabled him to boast that no U.S. president or administration before him had done as much to safeguard Israel’s security.

But behind this façade, Obama made sure that Israel’s security stayed firmly in the technical-material-financial realm and never crossed the line into a strategic relationship.

That was because he needed to keep his hands free for the objective of transferring the role of foremost U.S. ally in the Middle East from Israel to Iran, a process that took into account the ayatollahs’ nuclear aspirations.

This process unfolding over recent years has left Israel face to face with a nakedly hostile Iran empowered by the United States.

To pause for a second, it bears emphasizing: Today analysts are discussing Iran as the center of stability and top ally in the Middle East, referring to a “special relationship” between America and a genocidal, Jew-hating, jihadist regime. Nary anyone has stopped to acknowledge the monumental, shameful and, dare I say, treasonous implications of this fact.

Those in the Middle East however are fully awake to this metamorphosis, which is why Egypt has perhaps become Israel’s staunchest ally, and why several Arab nations – which may still detest Israel’s existence, but not as much as they fear their own survival — are effectively siding with Israel against Iran.

That the Obama administration was rebuffing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several days before he was even scheduled to speak in front of Congress – that the Obama administration even had to producetalking points about its support for Israel — evinces the Israel-Iran trade.

Nations, like friends, should not have to recite talking points to prove their allegiance. And actions speak louder than words.

***

We have two choices:

We can believe that President Obama genuinely thinks Iran — an enemy of America since 1979, whose proxies have been responsible for countless terrorist attacks against our citizens and our interests – will cease its nuclear weapons program, and serve as a stabilizing influence in the Middle East.

Alternatively, we can believe that President Obama knows that the Iranians are committed to undermining Israel and the interests of the West.

If we conclude the former, there is slightly less cause for concern.

Yet if we conclude the latter, we must also conclude that America’s president has knowingly aided, abetted or enabled Israel’s worst enemies – led by Iran – in the Middle East, presumably under the logic that global social justice demands it.

Israel – a free, tolerant and modern nation – has morphed through the propaganda of the global Left into a colonialist, apartheid state. Those who seek her destruction are considered by the Left to be legitimately aggrieved, and “lest we get on our high horse,” as the president likes to say, don’t forget about the Crusades.

In the Edward Said, Rashid Khalidi, Saul Alinsky world of progressive elitism in which President Obama considers himself a global citizen in good standing, what is moral and just is to redistribute power from America’s historical allies (the oppressors) to America’s historical enemies (the oppressed).

Hence President Obama’s “open hand” foreign policy towards “clenched fists,” a policy declared from the beginning of his presidency under which he has aided the global jihad generally and Iran specifically.

Those who argue that President Obama’s foreign policy has been one of retreat are only half right: The president has stepped back from the situations that most require American leadership and moral clarity in support of our allies against evil, while interjecting himself needlessly in other situations – implicitly or explicitly – on behalf of our enemies.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in President Obama’s trade of Israel for Iran.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-makes-worst-trade-us-history-israel-iran-86793/feed/0Ex-CIA Director David Petraeus Pleads Guilty to Mishandling Classified Materialhttp://www.teaparty.org/ex-cia-director-david-petraeus-pleads-guilty-mishandling-classified-material-86789/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ex-cia-director-david-petraeus-pleads-guilty-mishandling-classified-material
http://www.teaparty.org/ex-cia-director-david-petraeus-pleads-guilty-mishandling-classified-material-86789/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:35:19 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86789(The Blaze) – Former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials, the Justice Department said Tuesday. A Justice Department statement says a plea agreement has been filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina. The agency says the former top Army general was charged with one count of ...

]]>(The Blaze) – Former CIA Director David Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to mishandling classified materials, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

A Justice Department statement says a plea agreement has been filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The agency says the former top Army general was charged with one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material. The statement says Petraeus had signed an agreement pleading guilty to the single criminal count.

Petraeus’ lawyers David Kendall and Robert Barnett in Washington declined to comment.

The case was filed in Charlotte, the hometown of Paula Broadwell, the general’s biographer and former mistress.

Federal investigators had been looking into whether Petraeus improperly shared classified materials with Broadwell, with whom he admitted having an affair when he resigned from his position in November 2012. A law enforcement official had previously said agents found a substantial number of classified documents on Broadwell’s computer and at her home.

Both have publicly apologized for the relationship. They have said their romantic relationship began only after he retired from the military and started at the CIA.

The scandal marked an abrupt fall for Petraeus, a man who led U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and was thought to be a potential candidate for president.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/ex-cia-director-david-petraeus-pleads-guilty-mishandling-classified-material-86789/feed/1Boehener Submits to Obama’s Executive Amnestyhttp://www.teaparty.org/boehener-submits-to-obamas-executive-amnesty-86784/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boehener-submits-to-obamas-executive-amnesty
http://www.teaparty.org/boehener-submits-to-obamas-executive-amnesty-86784/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:26:59 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86784(The Blaze) – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has told Republicans that he would call up and pass a “clean” Department of Homeland Security spending bill this week, and give up the fight to use that bill to defund President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration. The decision marks the end of a standoff that ...

]]>(The Blaze) – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has told Republicans that he would call up and pass a “clean” Department of Homeland Security spending bill this week, and give up the fight to use that bill to defund President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.

The decision marks the end of a standoff that has lasted for several weeks — a standoff Republicans will lose to Democrats when the clean DHS bill passes.

Boehner met with other House Republicans in a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning, and as it ended, members indicated that Boehner announced that a vote on the bill could come as early as Tuesday.

A House aide confirmed that Republicans will try to pass the Senate version later on Tuesday.

Last week, more than 50 Republicans opposed legislation that didn’t defund Obama’s immigration plans, and that many or more may oppose the clean DHS bill in the final vote. That means Republicans will need Democratic support to pass the bill, an easy request, since Democrats have been clamoring to pass a bill that doesn’t attack immigration.

Earlier in the day, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a member with strong ties to GOP leaders who sits on several key committees, said the House would soon pass the Senate bill to fund the clean DHS bill.

“I think a clean bill is coming back from the Senate, probably arrives tomorrow, no later than the next day, and I think it’ll pass the House,” Cole said on Morning Joe. “I think it’ll go on the floor, and there’ll be a significant bipartisan majority in favor of funding Homeland Security.”

While House Republicans refused to pass the Senate version last week, it has been clear all week that GOP leaders had little choice but to approve the “clean” DHS bill. That has House conservatives angry because it will mean the end of legislative efforts to fight back against Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Cole said Republicans should console themselves with the victory they had in federal court, which imposed an injunction on the most objectionable parts of Obama’s November actions.

“There’s an injunction out there,” he said. “That injunction will probably be confirmed this week. So when you’ve won, every now and then it’s time to pull your chips off the table, walk away from the game, and some of our colleagues are having a hard time understanding that.”

“We’ve succeeded, and we’ve actually got it in an arena where we can win,” he added. “We were never going to win in Congress.”

“I think the Speaker’s made it clear all along,” he added. “He’s not going to shut down the Department of Homeland Security.”

It became clear over the last few days that once Senate Democrats voted to reject a House-Senate negotiation over the DHS bill, the House would be able to more easily approve the Senate’s bill, even if Republicans still opposed that option. That’s because House rules state that at this stage of the process, even House Democrats would be able to call up the Senate version, and likely watch it pass as long as 30 or so Republicans agree to it.

That prompted Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) to seek a change to House rules, although it’s unclear if enough Republicans would support that effort to continue fighting.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/boehener-submits-to-obamas-executive-amnesty-86784/feed/3Franklin Graham: New Obama Danger for Christianshttp://www.teaparty.org/franklin-graham-new-obama-danger-for-christians-86778/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=franklin-graham-new-obama-danger-for-christians
http://www.teaparty.org/franklin-graham-new-obama-danger-for-christians-86778/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:19:47 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86778‘The storm is coming, I believe’ (CBN) – Evangelist Franklin Graham says President Obama is sympathetic to Islam and is giving Muslim groups access to influence U.S. foreign policy, which eventually will lead to persecution of Christians and Jews in America. In an exclusive interview on CBN’s 700 Club Interactive program, Graham told host Gordon ...

(CBN) – Evangelist Franklin Graham says President Obama is sympathetic to Islam and is giving Muslim groups access to influence U.S. foreign policy, which eventually will lead to persecution of Christians and Jews in America. In an exclusive interview on CBN’s 700 Club Interactive program, Graham told host Gordon Robertson that the president’s upbringing is the reason he favors Islam.

“We’re going to see persecution in this country because our president is very sympathetic to Islam and the reason I say that, Gordon, is because his father was a Muslim, gave him a Muslim name, Barack Hussein Obama. His mother married another Muslim man, they moved to Indonesia, he went to Indonesian schools. So, growing up his frame of reference and his influence as a young man was Islam. It wasn’t Christianity, it was Islam,” he said.

Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the Christian relief agency Samaritan’s Purse, has been outspoken in his criticism of President Obama. He said the president has opened the doors of the White House to Muslim groups who are shaping foreign policy, including how the administration views the war on terror and especially U.S. relations with Israel.

“There are Muslims that have access to him in the White House. Our foreign policy has a lot of influence now, from Muslims. We see the Prime Minister of Israel being snubbed by the President and by the White House and by the Democrats and it’s because of the influence of Islam. They hate Israel and they hate Christians, and so the storm is coming I believe Gordon,” the evangelist said.

Graham agreed it was President Bush who first sought out Muslim groups for advice after the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

“After 9-11 the Bush Administration began to allow Muslims to come into various governmental agencies to advise us how to respond to Muslims and how to respond to Islam. …What’s happened is you now have radical Islamists who are advising various levels of government and it’s going to get worse and nobody seems to be alarmed about it. Nobody is saying anything about this and we as Christians are going to lose.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/franklin-graham-new-obama-danger-for-christians-86778/feed/1State Dept. Now Says They DID NOT Review Or Approve Donations To The Clinton Foundationhttp://www.teaparty.org/state-dept-now-says-review-approve-donations-clinton-foundation-86770/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=state-dept-now-says-review-approve-donations-clinton-foundation
http://www.teaparty.org/state-dept-now-says-review-approve-donations-clinton-foundation-86770/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:58:48 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86770(Politico) - The State Department is stepping back from a spokeswoman’s comment last week suggesting that the agency’s ethics lawyers signed off on donations to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Asked at a daily briefing Thursday about the foundation’s failure to submit a $500,000 donation from the country of Algeria ...

]]>(Politico) - The State Department is stepping back from a spokeswoman’s comment last week suggesting that the agency’s ethics lawyers signed off on donations to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.

Asked at a daily briefing Thursday about the foundation’s failure to submit a $500,000 donation from the country of Algeria for a conflict of interest review in 2010, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that the department did such reviews whenever the non-profit founded by former President Bill Clinton sent in information about a potential gift.

“We like to review — and we have reviewed every donation that was submitted,” Psaki said.

However, there are no indications any Clinton Foundation donations were ever sent to the State Department for approval.

Asked about Psaki’s comment, another State Department spokesperson said Monday that the reviews the agency did were of paid speeches Bill Clinton was proposing to make and business deals he wanted to enter into. From 2009 to 2012, hundreds of speech requests and a handful of consulting deals were sent to State Department lawyers for sign off. The vast majority were approved.

“We received requests regarding speeches and consultancies of former President Clinton,” State spokesman Alec Gerlach said.

Clarifying Psaki’s earlier comment, Gerlach said that State Department reviewed every request that came in, not every donation.

In her remarks last week, Psaki also said the State Department was not troubled that the Algeria gift was never flagged to State. “In this case, the fact that the process has – was not followed in this particular incident does not raise concerns with us,” the spokeswoman said.

The ethics agreement struck before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state in 2009 only required State Department review of donations to the Clinton Foundation under very limited circumstances: when a foreign government wanted to “materially” increase its giving to four specific Clinton Foundation programs.

Gifts from foreign governments to one program, the Clinton Global Initiative, were barred altogether, as were new gifts to the other four programs from governments that had not previously supported them.

The agreement did not require vetting of donations from individuals, whether foreign or U.S. citizens, or from private companies, but did require public disclosure of the names of donors on an annual basis. Part of the pact also required Bill Clinton to submit proposals for paid speeches as well as plans for consulting deals.

Both the Clinton camp and the State Department have noted that the agreement went beyond the requirements of the law.

In response to a Washington Post report about the Algeria gift, a foundation spokesman said the State Department “should…have been formally informed” about the donation. However, it’s unclear whether the text of the agreement actually required such vetting.

A foundation spokesman pushed back against criticism of the nonprofit on Monday, sending talking points to Clinton allies urging them to rebut “attacks on the Clinton Foundation” by stressing that the entity is “a world-class philanthropy” and that “every penny” of the Algeria gift went to helping Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake it experienced in 2010.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/state-dept-now-says-review-approve-donations-clinton-foundation-86770/feed/0Congress Will Award Netanyahu With A Bust Of Churchill Before Historic Speechhttp://www.teaparty.org/congress-will-award-netanyahu-bust-churchill-historic-speech-86766/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=congress-will-award-netanyahu-bust-churchill-historic-speech
http://www.teaparty.org/congress-will-award-netanyahu-bust-churchill-historic-speech-86766/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:52:44 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86766(Gateway Pundit) - Congress dedicated a bust of Winston Churchill, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and an honorary American citizen, in a ceremony in the magnificent Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in 2013. (Daily Signal) In the 1930s, Winston Churchill warned Britain and the Western world about the dangers of Adolf ...

]]>(Gateway Pundit) - Congress dedicated a bust of Winston Churchill, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and an honorary American citizen, in a ceremony in the magnificent Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in 2013. (Daily Signal)

In the 1930s, Winston Churchill warned Britain and the Western world about the dangers of Adolf Hitler and Germany. It was the strongest warning ever by a politician! Still, that warning was ignored and millions of Europeans lost their lives.

Today, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu will warn the West of the perils of a nuclear Islamic Iran. Like Churchill, Netanyahu has addressed a joint session of Congress three times.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/congress-will-award-netanyahu-bust-churchill-historic-speech-86766/feed/0States Challenge EPA Over Upcoming Mining Rulehttp://www.teaparty.org/states-challenge-epa-upcoming-mining-rule-86764/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=states-challenge-epa-upcoming-mining-rule
http://www.teaparty.org/states-challenge-epa-upcoming-mining-rule-86764/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:41:40 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86764(Washington Examiner) - Opponents of a coming draft rule governing water pollution from a controversial mining method contend the Interior Department broke federal law by shutting states out of the rule-making process. The charges from several states could affect whether a forthcoming Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement proposal on mountaintop removal mining can withstand ...

]]>(Washington Examiner) - Opponents of a coming draft rule governing water pollution from a controversial mining method contend the Interior Department broke federal law by shutting states out of the rule-making process.

The charges from several states could affect whether a forthcoming Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement proposal on mountaintop removal mining can withstand an expected legal challenge from coal-producing states.

“They are owed a certain level of communication which, to our understanding, hasn’t been provided,” Adam Eckman, associate general counsel with the National Mining Association, told the Washington Examiner.

The stream protection rule would tighten restrictions on mountaintop removal mining, which involves blasting peaks off mountains to access coal buried underneath. Industry groups and environmental sources following the rule believe it would update definitions on what qualifies as a stream, potentially subjecting more waters to regulation.

At center are 11 states that elected to be “cooperating agencies” under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires assessments of projects and rules that would affect the environment. Since states are the ones that enforce the federal mining rules, they can choose to become the points of contact with the federal mining office during the process.

The states said they weren’t consulted enough when the agency was conducting its draft environmental impact statement — that analysis will inform a draft rule, which is scheduled for a spring release — and that the agency denied them access to data. Utah, Alabama and New Mexico already have decided to withdraw from the process.

“They don’t want their participation inappropriately characterized by [the mining office] in the final version of the [environmental impact statement],” Greg Conrad, executive director with the Interstate Mining Compact Commission, told the Examiner. “They don’t think there is going to be real opportunity of any kind to participate in any substantive way, so why take a chance of being misrepresented or mischaracterized?”

The Interior Department said that comments from the cooperating states have been acknowledged in the upcoming environmental impact statement.

“The cooperating state agencies provided [the Office of Surface Mining] with many valuable comments on the draft [environmental statement], and that input was helpful in drafting the latest version. [The Office of Surface Mining] again thanks the agencies for their input, and looks forward to receiving comments when the [environmental statement] and proposed rule are published,” mining office spokesman Chris Holmes told the Examiner.

Bill Price, a Charleston, W.Va., organizing representative with the Sierra Club, said he is not surprised states have been kept in the dark. He told the Examiner that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement also has shut out environmental groups seeking stronger regulations since 2011.

“I don’t know that the mining industry has been cut out of it any more than we’ve been cut out of it,” Price said. “I don’t think anyone has been involved since 2011.”

The coal-mining industry contends the rule would make mining — particularly in Appalachia — uneconomical, costing jobs. But environmentalists have pushed for stronger regulations because they are concerned that sediment from the explosions enters and pollutes waterways, as well as fouling up the air in nearby communities.

“We feel that there needs to be a bright line around streams in Appalachia,” Price said.

The draft rule has been mired in political squabbles for several years.

A federal court last year rejected a 2008 update to the 1983 federal mining law. The court found that version, drafted during President George W. Bush’s administration, ignored evidence that mountaintop removal mining would hurt wildlife and endangered species.

Before that ruling, Republicans had criticized the Obama administration, which was rewriting the regulation as the Bush-era one went through the court system, when a 2011 Associated Press report found that the mining agency in a draft environmental impact statement estimated the proposed rule would cost 7,000 mining jobs.

The 11 states that participated as cooperating agencies said that there has been no opportunity for input since January 2011. The states said the agency has since “significantly revised” the analysis and that new alternatives are included.

“Based on our experience to date … we assert that [the mining office] has not provided for meaningful participation by the cooperating agency states in the preparation of the [environmental impact statement] and it seems unlikely that the agency will do so prior to release of the draft [environmental impact statement] and proposed rule this spring,” the heads of state energy agencies said in a Feb. 23 letter to agency director Joseph Pizarchik.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/states-challenge-epa-upcoming-mining-rule-86764/feed/0Sources: U.S. House To Vote On Security Bill Without Immigration Provisionshttp://www.teaparty.org/sources-u-s-house-vote-security-bill-without-immigration-provisions-86762/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sources-u-s-house-vote-security-bill-without-immigration-provisions
http://www.teaparty.org/sources-u-s-house-vote-security-bill-without-immigration-provisions-86762/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:35:13 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86762(Yahoo/Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner told Republicans the House would vote later on Tuesday on a Senate bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year without restrictions on President Barack Obama’s immigration actions, members at the meeting said. The vote would likely end the legislative ...

]]>(Yahoo/Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner told Republicans the House would vote later on Tuesday on a Senate bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the fiscal year without restrictions on President Barack Obama’s immigration actions, members at the meeting said.

The vote would likely end the legislative confrontation over funding for the agency that spearheads domestic counterterrorism operations. The department’s current spending authority ends at midnight on Friday.

Conservative House Republicans have demanded the spending legislation include language that would block Obama’s executive orders lifting the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented residents, but Obama and Democrats have backed the so-called ‘clean’ funding bill passed by the Senate.

Last Friday, the House voted to keep the lights on at the agency for one week to give them more time to work out a strategy for battling Obama’s immigration actions, but Boehner told Republican House members at a meeting on Tuesday that he would allow a vote on the Senate bill.

Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked the House-passed bill that includes the immigration provisions. The clean Senate bill is likely to pass the House with support from moderate Republicans and House Democrats. Obama has said he would sign it.

The bill provides nearly $40 billion in funding for the agency that secures U.S. borders, airports and coastal waters. Without it, the agency would be forced to furlough about 30,000 employees, or about 15 percent of the workforce.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/sources-u-s-house-vote-security-bill-without-immigration-provisions-86762/feed/1Bill Clinton’s Portrait Has Reminder Of Monicahttp://www.teaparty.org/bill-clintons-portrait-reminder-monica-86759/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bill-clintons-portrait-reminder-monica
http://www.teaparty.org/bill-clintons-portrait-reminder-monica-86759/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:29:07 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86759‘He’s probably the most famous liar of all time’ (Yahoo) - The artist who painted the official White House portrait of President Bill Clinton says he quietly included a reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal — and the infamous blue dress — in his painting. “If you look at the left-hand side of it, there’s a ...

(Yahoo) - The artist who painted the official White House portrait of President Bill Clinton says he quietly included a reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal — and the infamous blue dress — in his painting.

“If you look at the left-hand side of it, there’s a mantel in the Oval Office,” Nelson Shanks told the Philadelphia Daily News. “I put a shadow coming into the painting, and it does two things. It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.”

The revelation of Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, a White House intern, created a firestorm in American politics and led to the president’s impeachment in 1998.

The 77-year-old Shanks, who has painted everyone from Princess Diana to Pope John Paul II, said Clinton was the hardest.
“The reality is he’s probably the most famous liar of all time,” Shanks said. “He and his administration did some very good things, of course, but I could never get this Monica thing completely out of my mind, and it is subtly incorporated in the painting.”

The 2001 portrait is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection, though Shanks says the 42nd president would like it removed.

(AP/National Portrait Gallery, Nelson Shanks)

“The Clintons hate the portrait,” he continued. “They want it removed from the National Portrait Gallery. They’re putting a lot of pressure on them.”

But a museum spokesperson told ABC News that they have not received any requests from the Clintons to remove the portrait.

The shadow is not the only controversial part of the painting. When the portrait was unveiled in 2006, it caused a minor stir because Shanks left out Clinton’s wedding ring.

According to Shanks, Clinton personally chose him to paint his official portrait. And in a 2001 interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Shanks insisted he was taking the assignment seriously.

“There are times when I love to play all kinds of complicated games in painting,” Shanks said. “But I think this is one case when I need to be fairly straightforward. I’ll just try to paint the man, his intelligence, his amiability and his stature, maybe paint him fairly close to humor and try to get it just right.”

Last year, Lewinsky wrote publicly about the affair for the first time.

“It’s time to burn the beret and bury the blue dress,” Lewinsky wrote in an essay for Vanity Fair. “I am determined to have a different ending to my story.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/bill-clintons-portrait-reminder-monica-86759/feed/0Jeb Bush’s Team Calls On Clinton To Release All Her E-mailshttp://www.teaparty.org/jeb-bushs-team-calls-clinton-release-e-mails-86757/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=jeb-bushs-team-calls-clinton-release-e-mails
http://www.teaparty.org/jeb-bushs-team-calls-clinton-release-e-mails-86757/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:19:32 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86757(Newsmax) - Jeb Bush’s camp on Monday pounced on the revelation that Hillary Clinton used only personal e-mail as secretary of state. “Hillary Clinton should release her e-mails. Hopefully she hasn’t already destroyed them,” Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told Politico. “Governor Bush believes transparency is a critical part of public service and of governing.” SPECIAL: Join ...

]]>(Newsmax) - Jeb Bush’s camp on Monday pounced on the revelation that Hillary Clinton used only personal e-mail as secretary of state.

“Hillary Clinton should release her e-mails. Hopefully she hasn’t already destroyed them,” Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told Politico. “Governor Bush believes transparency is a critical part of public service and of governing.”

Clinton’s avoidance of an official e-mail account while serving as President Obama’s top diplomat from 2009 to 2013 “may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record,” according to the New York Times, which first reported the news Monday. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill “said she has been complying with the ‘letter and spirit of the rules,’” the newspaper reported.

The revelation is an opportunity for Bush, a likely Republican presidential candidate, to contrast himself with Clinton, the presumed Democratic frontrunner, on the issue of transparency. Bush, a famously active e-mailer as governor of Florida, in December said he intended to release about 250,000 messages from his time as governor, to accompany an e-book.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/jeb-bushs-team-calls-clinton-release-e-mails-86757/feed/0U.S. Won’t Provide Airstrikes For Iraqi Offensive Against Islamic State: Pentagonhttp://www.teaparty.org/u-s-wont-provide-airstrikes-iraqi-offensive-islamic-state-pentagon-86754/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=u-s-wont-provide-airstrikes-iraqi-offensive-islamic-state-pentagon
http://www.teaparty.org/u-s-wont-provide-airstrikes-iraqi-offensive-islamic-state-pentagon-86754/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:17:31 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86754(Washington Times) - The U.S. is not providing airstrikes to help the Iraqi government’s new counteroffensive to again try to take back the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Tikrit from the Islamic State terrorist army. The American-led coalition has conducted thousands of airstrikes since August to whittle down the Islamic State occupiers, but in this case, it ...

]]>(Washington Times) - The U.S. is not providing airstrikes to help the Iraqi government’s new counteroffensive to again try to take back the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Tikrit from the Islamic State terrorist army.

The American-led coalition has conducted thousands of airstrikes since August to whittle down the Islamic State occupiers, but in this case, it is letting Iraqi aircraft do the bombing.

After at least two failed attempts in recent months to capture Tikrit, Iraq has mustered a much larger force of 25,000. A large number of them are not the regular Iraqi army but Shiite militia fighters who are battling Iraqi Sunni groups loyal to the Islamic State, also called ISIL and ISIS.

Iraq’s largest counteroffensive to date began Monday morning with thrusts from the south and north aimed at retaking Saddam Hussein’s old neighborhood.

Press reports from Baghdad said Iranians were backing up the Shia militias, creating a possible combustible ethnic mix that could break out into sectarian violence instead of a well-orchestrated campaign.

“The Sunnis are torn between holding their nose and siding with ISIS or putting up with Shia militia and Iranian proxies,” said Robert Maginnis, a retired Army officer and military analyst. “Sectarianism is very much alive, and will drive this conflict far more than the political leaders admit.”

The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the attack with an olive branch to Iraqi Sunnis who joined the Islamic State: Leave the group and win a grant of amnesty.

“The U.S. has not provided airstrikes in support of the operation,” Cmdr. Smith said. “From my understanding, the Iraqis haven’t asked us to. All of our airstrikes are conducted in coordination with the Iraqis.”

Mr. Maginnis said much of the fighting will be done by Shiite militiamen guided by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, which trained the same types of fighters in how to kill Americans during the 2003-2011 Iraq War.

“The Iraqi Security Forces are unprepared for close-in combat and won’t be [ready] for some time,” Mr. Maginnis said.

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported that Quds force commander Gen. Ghasem Soleimani arrived in Iraq two days ago to coordinate the attack. The Islamic State condemns all Shiites, including Iranians, as apostates or nonbelievers.

The large presence of Iranian-backed fighters may be the reason for no U.S. airstrikes since the Americans would, in effect, be providing close air support for Iran.

Home to about 250,000 Iraqis, Tikrit sits 80 miles north of Baghdad and is the capital of Salauhddin province.

The city put up considerable resistance to the U.S. occupation. It was home to a number of al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist cells, out of which sprung the Islamic State.

“Military operations reinforced by international and Iraqi air support must be conducted with the utmost care to avoid civilian casualties and with full respect for fundamental human rights principles and humanitarian law,” Mr. Mladenov said.

Controlling the city would be a big boost to the six-month-old Shiite-dominated government of Mr. Abadi and possibly provide a launching point to invade the large city of Mosul farther north.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. James Dubik, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, said many questions remain: Can Iraq’s government reclaim Tikrit? How does Baghdad plan to hold it? Will any recriminations follow?

On Mr. Abadi’s timing, Mr. Dubik said, the operation may be a chance to increase confidence in the Iraqi Security Forces, test the Islamic State’s defenses and shorten ground supply routes for battle in Mosul.

Mr. Abadi traveled to Samarra on Sunday to address fighters poised to attack.

Samarra is the hometown of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a cleric who rose in the ranks of al Qaeda in Iraq and then formed the Islamic State in eastern Syria amid the so-called Arab Spring that spawned opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Islamic State’s conquests in Iraq began in January 2014, when it invaded the western portion of the country, eventually capturing the city of Fallujah, for which the U.S. expended much blood in 2004 in two major battles.

Six months later, Islamic State terrorists swept out of Syria into northern Iraq, taking Sunni-dominated cities such as Mosul and Tikrit.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/u-s-wont-provide-airstrikes-iraqi-offensive-islamic-state-pentagon-86754/feed/0Ben Carson Moves Closer to White House Bidhttp://www.teaparty.org/ben-carson-forms-exploratory-committee-aid-2016-bid-86751/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ben-carson-forms-exploratory-committee-aid-2016-bid
http://www.teaparty.org/ben-carson-forms-exploratory-committee-aid-2016-bid-86751/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:58:52 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86751(Newsmax) - Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has launched an exploratory committee as a precursor to a bid for the White House in 2016, The Wall Street Journal reported. The 63-year-old conservative favorite, who has never run for office, is one of the first potential candidates to form a formal committee aimed at raising money to explore ...

An exploratory committee would enable him to raise money which could transfer to his campaign should he choose to run, the Journal said.

Carson is already demonstrating support among Republican voters. In a Public Policy Polling survey released last week, Carson came in second behind Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, with 18 percent support.

Carson’s campaign chief executive, Terry Giles, said in January that Caron was likely to formally declare his candidacy in May. In the meantime, he has scheduled a number of paid speeches through April, the Journal said.

Giles also said the campaign will soon announce the addition of “major players” to its team.

Carson said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he was “seeing a very substantial amount of support across the country in red states, blue states, North, South, East, West” for a potential bid.

“If I were to run and were to win, I would have very different vision [from President Barack Obama]. It would be a vision of putting the Constitution back on the top shelf. It would be a vision of making our government understand that it works for the people,” he said.

“And that the government responds to the will of the people, and not picking and choosing who should win and lose, what laws we want to enforce. And our laws that we enforce have nothing to do with our own personal beliefs. It has to do with the laws and the constitutions of this country.”

]]>(The Hill) - President Obama may not be watching Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress on Tuesday.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper tweeted on Monday night that a “senior [White House] adviser” had told the network’s analyst Gloria Borger they believed that Obama would be in a meeting during the prime minister’s 11:00 a.m. speech.

“I haven’t looked at the president’s schedule for tomorrow,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said on Monday. “I doubt that he will spend his whole time watching the speech.”

Spokesman Eric Schultz said that he didn’t have anything to add to Earnest’s comments following the report from Tapper. But the president’s public schedule for Tuesday, released on Monday evening, said that Obama would be in a meeting at 10:30 a.m. It did not list a commitment for 11:00 a.m.

Netanyahu is likely to criticize the administration-supported talks with Iran over its nuclear program. Some Democratic lawmakers have said that they will not attend because they view it as disrespectful for a foreign leader to rebuke a sitting president before Congress.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/white-house-doubtful-obama-will-tune-bibis-speech-congress-86749/feed/1Newt Gingrich: Choke Point ‘Is The Beginning Of A Real Tyranny In The United States’http://www.teaparty.org/newt-gingrich-choke-point-beginning-real-tyranny-united-states-86747/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=newt-gingrich-choke-point-beginning-real-tyranny-united-states
http://www.teaparty.org/newt-gingrich-choke-point-beginning-real-tyranny-united-states-86747/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:42:49 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86747(The Daily Signal) - In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal, Newt Gingrich called the Justice Department’s Operation Choke Point, “the beginning of a real tyranny in the United States,” and said the whole program needs to be dismantled. “I don’t think the average American realizes that the bureaucrats have come up with a model, ...

]]>(The Daily Signal) - In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal, Newt Gingrich called the Justice Department’s Operation Choke Point, “the beginning of a real tyranny in the United States,” and said the whole program needs to be dismantled.

“I don’t think the average American realizes that the bureaucrats have come up with a model, which could kill any industry, kill any business, and do so even though what it was doing was totally legal,” he said while attending the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House and presidential candidate, is an outspoken critic of Operation Choke Point, which was designed in 2012 as a way to reduce mass market consumer fraud by blocking certain industries’ access to bank accounts, payment processors and other financial institutions.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce defended the agency’s actions in an email to The Daily Signal, saying it has “no interest in pursuing or discouraging lawful conduct.”

Instead, Pierce said the program—which she did not address by name—aims to “hold accountable banks and payment processors that illegally enable fraudulent businesses to siphon billions of dollars from consumers’ bank accounts in exchange for significant fees.”

But whether intentional or not, The Daily Signal has documented multiple examples where Operation Choke Point affected a range of legal and legitimate industries, including firearms sellers and payday lenders.

Under Operation Choke Point, federal regulators pressure banks and other financial institutions to not do business with customers operating in what they consider “high risk” industries.

Of that strategy, Gingrich said:

The liberals that come up with this new model—where you’re doing something which is totally legal that they don’t like—they go to your banker and they choke off your money by saying to the banker, ‘You know, that business over there, that’s kind of risky.’ And the bank gets scared because these are their regulators. And so the bank comes to you and says, ‘We’re no longer going to be able to handle your account.’

Gingrich said the program poses a real threat to the American public and that “the whole model needs to be replaced.”

“What you’re doing is totally legal, but they have decided as bureaucrats, that they don’t like it,” he said.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/newt-gingrich-choke-point-beginning-real-tyranny-united-states-86747/feed/1Elie Wiesel, Ted Cruz Urge U.S. To Take Iran Seriously, Listen To Netanyahuhttp://www.teaparty.org/elie-wiesel-ted-cruz-urge-u-s-take-iran-seriously-listen-netanyahu-86744/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=elie-wiesel-ted-cruz-urge-u-s-take-iran-seriously-listen-netanyahu
http://www.teaparty.org/elie-wiesel-ted-cruz-urge-u-s-take-iran-seriously-listen-netanyahu-86744/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 14:33:08 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86744(Washington Free Beacon) - Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel told a large group on Capitol Hill on Monday that the threat of a nuclear Iran must be taken seriously and said it was important that Americans hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. Wiesel was joined by Sen. Ted Cruz ...

]]>(Washington Free Beacon) - Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel told a large group on Capitol Hill on Monday that the threat of a nuclear Iran must be taken seriously and said it was important that Americans hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.

Wiesel was joined by Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) in a jam-packed Senate auditorium for a discussion on the dangers of Iran and the rising tide of anti-Semitism across the globe.

“To be Jewish in this world is to always be concerned,” explained Wiesel when asked about Iran. “When enemies make threats, take them seriously.”

“When evil begins its work, don’t give it another chance,” said Wiesel.

Echoing Wiesel’s grave words on Iran was Cruz, who was introduced by event moderator Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as a “lion in the defense of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Cruz argued that the political squabbles such as the one surrounding Netanyahu’s Tuesday speech are “nonsense” and that it is time to start taking Iran seriously.

“There is lots of chatter about someone at the White House upset that some protocol wasn’t followed—none of it matters, it is all nonsense,” Cruz said. “What matters is what we do right now to address the single greatest national security threat facing both the nation of Israel and the United States.”

“Iran is building centrifuges, Iran is enriching uranium, Iran is continuing to develop its ICBM program, and for three years we have gone round and round in pointless negotiations while we endanger both our security and Israel’s security,” said Cruz.

Cruz made clear his belief that the Obama administration is comfortable with Iran having a nuclear weapon because it doesn’t “understand who it is they are negotiating with.”

“Those who are leading this negotiation fundamentally don’t understand who it is they are negotiating with,” Cruz said. “I think their view is it’s perfectly acceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons.”

Cruz also took a shot at the isolationist view that the Iranian threat should be of no concern to the United States, saying, “it is not by accident that Iran refers to Israel as the Little Satan and America as the Great Satan.”

For this reason, Cruz said he told Netanyahu that his address to Congress was “important to Israel, but every bit as important to the United States.”

Cruz called Wiesel both an “American hero” and “a hero of the world” and said it was both “humbling and breathtaking” to join him in “shining a light on the grave threats facing both Israel and the United States.”

The event, promoted as a “bipartisan dialogue” on Iran, was supposed to include Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman (Calif.), but he withdrew from the event at the last minute due to an advertisement run by Boteach against Susan Rice that Sherman found to be “vulgar.”

Cruz said during the event that more than a dozen Democrats were invited to the Wiesel event, but that none accepted.

Wiesel will attend Netanyahu’s speech Tuesday as a special guest of Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio). He stressed at the Monday event how important it is that Netanyahu be heard by Congress.

“We are a people that has always spoke up,” said Wiesel, who said he feels it is his duty to speak up if there is any chance that he could have a positive impact in the world.

“I cannot allow myself to live in a world where somebody will need me and I will not answer.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/elie-wiesel-ted-cruz-urge-u-s-take-iran-seriously-listen-netanyahu-86744/feed/0Supreme Court Could End Forced Unionization For State Workershttp://www.teaparty.org/supreme-court-end-forced-unionization-state-workers-86741/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=supreme-court-end-forced-unionization-state-workers
http://www.teaparty.org/supreme-court-end-forced-unionization-state-workers-86741/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:58:18 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86741(Daily Caller) - Public sector workers on the state level could be granted the choice of whether or not to join a union if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear an upcoming case. The Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of April whether to hear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The case ...

]]>(Daily Caller) - Public sector workers on the state level could be granted the choice of whether or not to join a union if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear an upcoming case.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of April whether to hear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The case argues public sector workers, such as teachers, should have the right to decide whether they want to join a union or pay union fees. This would include agency fees, which require non-union workers to pay for collective bargaining costs.

The case was brought by 10 California teachers with support from the Center for Individual Rights.

Patrick J. Wright, director at the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, argued that workers, including government workers, should have the right to decide whether they want to join a union.

“You should not have to pay agency fees,” Wright told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Public sector workers should have right-to-work as a matter of constitutional law.”

Wright also argued against claims that such a ruling would destroy unions. Looking at states like Michigan, which passed a right-to-work law, he noted a high percentage of workers still are becoming union members. Wright said that the problem is simply giving workers the choice.

Policy experts and organizations are already beginning to submit reports and opinions to the Supreme Court for consideration during the case. Parties outside the case are allowed to provide relevant information in the form of an Amicus Brief.

“There is not an inextricable link between exclusive representation and an agency fee,” Mackinac argued in its Amicus Brief, which was obtained by TheDCNF. “This can be shown by circumstantial and empirical evidence from Michigan and the rest of the nation. Hence, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education.”

In its brief, Mackinac focused on the legality of agency fees, arguing that they should be deemed unconstitutional.

The National Right to Work Foundation also submitted an Amicus Brief, which urges the court to take up the case and rule in favor of the 10 teachers.

“National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have filed a ‘friend of the Court’ brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging it to hear a challenge to public-sector union officials’ power to force America’s civil servants into dues-paying ranks,” NRTW detailed in a press release. “Foundation attorneys filed the brief late Friday in support of the challenge, titled Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, brought by ten California teachers supported by the Center for Individual Rights.”

NRTW noted the case could be good grounds to overturn Abood v. Detroit Board of Education while expanding rights granted under Harris v. Quinn. In Abood, the court allowed unions to continue to require agency fees while in Harris, certain government contractors like homecare workers were allowed to leave their unions and stop paying agency fees.

“This case is also a suitable vehicle for declaring un-constitutional union requirements that nonmembers object to the seizure of nonchargeable fees in order not to pay those fees,” NRTW argued in its brief, which was obtained by TheDCNF. “These ‘opt-out’ requirements are intrinsically unlawful because unions lack the lawful authority to seize nonchargeable fees from nonmembers in the first place.”

TheDCNF could not reach the California Teachers Association for comment.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/supreme-court-end-forced-unionization-state-workers-86741/feed/1Obama: Bullet Ban ‘Common Sense’ to Protect Policehttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-bullet-ban-common-sense-to-protect-police-86738/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-bullet-ban-common-sense-to-protect-police
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-bullet-ban-common-sense-to-protect-police-86738/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:53:27 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86738(Breitbart) - White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is defending a proposal by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to ban AR-15 ammunition. Earnest calls it a “common sense” approach. “This seems to be an area where everyone should agree, that if there are armor piercing bullets available that can fit into easily concealed weapons, ...

]]>(Breitbart) - White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is defending a proposal by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to ban AR-15 ammunition. Earnest calls it a “common sense” approach.

“This seems to be an area where everyone should agree, that if there are armor piercing bullets available that can fit into easily concealed weapons, that it puts our law enforcement at considerable more risk,” Earnest explained when questioned about the ban by White House reporter Fred Lucas.

The proposed “framework” would ban the 5.56-millimeter “M855 green tip” rifle bullet to prevent the ammunition from being used in handguns. The ATF has requested public comment before making a decision.

“Millions upon millions of M855 rounds have been sold and used in the U.S., yet the ATF has not even alleged, much less offered evidence, that even one such round has ever been fired from a handgun at a police officer,” the letter reads.

Earnest said that the ATF was considering the ban via its “standard process” for such actions, and directed questions to the bureau.

The National Rifle Association vowed to fight the ban, asserting that the organization would work with members of Congress on legislation to stop the ATF proposal.

The potential ban has angered gun-rights advocates and is currently causing a run on the specific type of ammunition across the United States.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-bullet-ban-common-sense-to-protect-police-86738/feed/5Obama to Expand Federal Control Over State, Local Policehttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-to-expand-federal-control-over-state-local-police-86735/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-to-expand-federal-control-over-state-local-police
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-to-expand-federal-control-over-state-local-police-86735/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:47:38 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86735(Daily Caller) - President Barack Obama today introduced his plan for a progressive takeover of state and local policing. “We have a great opportunity… to really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations,” he said Monday. “We need to seize that opportunity… this is something that I’m going to stay very focused on in ...

]]>(Daily Caller) - President Barack Obama today introduced his plan for a progressive takeover of state and local policing.

“We have a great opportunity… to really transform how we think about community law enforcement relations,” he said Monday.

“We need to seize that opportunity… this is something that I’m going to stay very focused on in the months to come,” Obama said, as he touted a new interim report from his Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

Obama also instructed his media allies to help a federalization of policing, and to sideline critics of centralized policing rules. “I expect our friends in the media to really focus on what’s in this report and pay attention to it.”

Obama is using the crisis sparked by the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, who was killed after assaulting a shopkeeper and a policeman in Ferguson, Mo. Obama and his deputies stoked the subsequent controversy in the run-up to the 2014 election, in the hope of boosting African-American turnout. The mobilization effort failed, partly because local law-enforcement officials released a video showing Brown’s strong-arm robbery of a store shortly before the fatal shooting.

Now Obama is trying to expand progressive control by attaching more conditions to federal funding of state and local law-enforcement efforts. “We can expand the [federally-funded] COPS program… to see if we can get more incentives for local communities to apply some of the best practices and lessons that are embodied in this report,” he said.

Those best practices likely will eventually include rules that restrict police investigations of groups that are part of the Democratic coalition, and rules that try to level convictions and penalties among various sub-groups of the United Stats, regardless of actual conviction rates.

“I think communities [with police forces] across the board are going to need to consider… recommendations around prohibiting racial profiling [and] that’s a step that we’ve already taken at the federal level,” Obama said.

The report also calls for government to collect more data about state and local policing. That data will help federal officials impose new rules. “We need more information to find out how to take to scale best practices when it comes to training so that police officers are able to work in a way that reduces the possibilities of bias,“ Obama said.

State and local policing may need to be subordinated to federal social policy, Obama suggested. “Our approach to our drug laws, for example, and criminalization of nonviolent offenses rather than taking more of a public health approach — that may be something that has an impact in eroding trust between law enforcement and communities.”

Those political goals are echoed in the tasks force’s interim report.

“Law enforcement agencies should acknowledge the role of policing in past and present injustice and discrimination and how it is a hurdle to the promotion of community trust,” the report says. “The Federal Government, as well as state and local agencies, should encourage and incentivize higher education for law enforcement officers.”

Other recommendations include “Law enforcement agencies should engage community members in the training process…. [government] should ensure that basic recruit and in-service officer training include curriculum on the disease of addiction… Law enforcement agencies should implement training for officers that covers policies for interactions with the LGBTQ population, including issues such as determining gender identity for arrest placement, the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, and immigrant or non-English speaking groups, as well as reinforcing policies for the prevention of sexual misconduct and harassment..”

Obama’s strategy matches the progressive playbook, which continuously expands progressives’ power by gradually adding more conditions to federal aid. That same strategy is implemented in education via the “Common Core” education plan, in the health-sector via Obamacare, in the banking industry via the mortgage rules that caused the damaging property bubble and in housing via Obama’s “regionalism” plan.

That’s strategically different from prior Democratic administrations, which cited poverty as a justification for expanding federal aid. The unemployment rate for African-Americans in Ferguson is roughly 16 percent.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-to-expand-federal-control-over-state-local-police-86735/feed/2Senate Democrats Block House DHS Conference Motionhttp://www.teaparty.org/senate-democrats-block-house-dhs-conference-motion-86732/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=senate-democrats-block-house-dhs-conference-motion
http://www.teaparty.org/senate-democrats-block-house-dhs-conference-motion-86732/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:41:12 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86732(Breitbart) - Senate Democrats blocked consideration of a motion to agree to the House’s request to take the Department of Homeland Security appropriations process to a conference committee on Monday evening. The vote failed on a vote of 47-43. Sixty votes were needed for the measure to advance to debate. Last month the House passed a ...

]]>(Breitbart) - Senate Democrats blocked consideration of a motion to agree to the House’s request to take the Department of Homeland Security appropriations process to a conference committee on Monday evening.

The vote failed on a vote of 47-43. Sixty votes were needed for the measure to advance to debate.

Last month the House passed a DHS funding bill that also defunded President Obama’s executive amnesty. Senate Democrats spent the much of the month of February blocking the House-passed bill from getting to the Senate floor for debate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell eventually acquiesced to Democrats’ demands for a so-called “clean” DHS funding bill — or one free of the Democrat-opposed House immigration riders — last week. That clean bill passed the Senate, creating discord between the House- and Senate-passed bills.

House Republicans on Friday passed a motion to go to conference with the Senate to reconcile the chambers’ divergent funding bills on a vote of 228-191.

Senate Democrats’ obstruction was not unexpected. Last week Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told reporters that a conference committee was not in the cards.

“We will not allow a conference to take place. It won’t happen,” Reid said last Thursday, a message he restated on the Senate floor Monday.

McConnell, before the vote Monday, called on Democrats to work with the House bill, saying that the continued obstruction “doesn’t make any sense.”

“It’s interesting to see the distance between rhetoric and reality with some of our Democrat friends. Not just on conferencing bills, not just on addressing the President’s overreach, but also with the use of the filibuster itself,” McConnell said.

“Some of the folks who are now filibustering simply for the sake of delaying and causing gridlock are the same folks who used to denounce the filibuster,” he added. “It’s interesting to see that they weren’t serious.”

Now that the Senate has essentially rejected the House’s move to a conference committee, eyes once again return to the House and how House Republicans will respond.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/senate-democrats-block-house-dhs-conference-motion-86732/feed/0EXPOSED: Department of Justice Shut Down Search For Lois Lerner’s Emailshttp://www.teaparty.org/exposed-department-justice-shut-search-lois-lerners-emails-86728/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=exposed-department-justice-shut-search-lois-lerners-emails
http://www.teaparty.org/exposed-department-justice-shut-search-lois-lerners-emails-86728/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:34:12 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86728(Daily Caller) - The Obama administration’s Department of Justice shut down an attempt to force the Internal Revenue Service to search for Lois Lerner’s missing emails at off-site storage facilities. The IRS never looked for Lerner’s backup email tapes at the West Virginia storage facility where they were being housed. Treasury deputy inspector general Timothy Camus ...

]]>(Daily Caller) - The Obama administration’s Department of Justice shut down an attempt to force the Internal Revenue Service to search for Lois Lerner’s missing emails at off-site storage facilities.

The IRS never looked for Lerner’s backup email tapes at the West Virginia storage facility where they were being housed. Treasury deputy inspector general Timothy Camus told Congress that the IRS never asked IT professionals at the New Martinsville, W.V. storage site for the backup tapes. Camus only found the backup tape for Lerner’s missing 2011 emails about two weeks ago.

But the Obama administration knew that emails were stored at off-site facilities, and even shut down a legal request to send somebody to go look for them.

“We said in court that there are off-site servers where all IRS emails are stored,” lawyer Cleta Mitchell told The Daily Caller. Mitchell represents the voter-ID group True the Vote in its lawsuit against the IRS over improper targeting. Shortly after it was revealed last summer that the IRS was missing Lerner’s emails, Mitchell petitioned U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton for an independent forensic examiner to be appointed to investigate the missing emails.

Mitchell referred to the IRS’ off-site storage facilities in West Virginia and Pittsburgh in court in July. But DOJ lawyers representing the IRS and the Treasury inspector general argued that Mitchell could not even discuss the existence of the storage facilities in her capacity as a lawyer.

“The Department of Justice lawyers objected to that and said I shouldn’t even be allowed to mention these off-site servers without sworn affidavits,” Mitchell told TheDC. “They meant that I was trying to testify to the judge without bringing in witnesses with sworn affidavits.”

Mitchell’s motion to get an independent forensic examiner was denied. The IRS’ internal investigation never headed to West Virginia, and the Treasury inspector general’s investigation managed to find a pertinent tape in West Virginia a mere two weeks before last Thursday’s House Oversight hearing. One of the IRS employees tasked with finding data on Lerner’s crashed hard drive was legally blind.

Mitchell’s statement about the off-site servers was clear as day, according to court transcripts obtained by TheDC.

“I’m advised that the IRS maintains servers that are in different states in different locations and that IRS employees are advised that their emails are never lost,” Mitchell said in court, according to the transcripts.

“That’s what I’ve been told as far as my emails here,” the Court replied.

“And I have had individuals who worked with, for the IRS from all across the country who have communicated that to me,” Mitchell continued. “And they say — I hear from government employees, retired and active, who say what is being said is not possible. It is not plausible and it is contrary to what we are told as employees of the IRS.”

Mitchell requested “the opportunity to at least have some expert look at whether the perimeters of the investigation are complete and…will fully cover all of the potential ways or places in which this investigation should look or take into consideration.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/exposed-department-justice-shut-search-lois-lerners-emails-86728/feed/3Above the Law: Hillary Conducted All State Dept Business from Personal Email Accounthttp://www.teaparty.org/house-benghazi-committee-busts-hillary-clinton-using-personal-email-evade-transparency-requirements-86725/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=house-benghazi-committee-busts-hillary-clinton-using-personal-email-evade-transparency-requirements
http://www.teaparty.org/house-benghazi-committee-busts-hillary-clinton-using-personal-email-evade-transparency-requirements-86725/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 13:25:32 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86725(Breitbart) - If we still lived in a nation where the rule of law meant anything to our left-wing aristocracy, the discovery that Hillary Clinton used personal email accounts to evade federal transparency requirements would finish her, and probably finish Barack Obama with her. He had to be in on the scheme, after all. Nearly every ...

]]>(Breitbart) - If we still lived in a nation where the rule of law meant anything to our left-wing aristocracy, the discovery that Hillary Clinton used personal email accounts to evade federal transparency requirements would finish her, and probably finish Barack Obama with her.

He had to be in on the scheme, after all. Nearly every high official in the Obama Administration is a willing co-conspirator. They all knew Clinton completely avoided using the State Department’s official email system. In fact, it turns out she didn’t even use it once. This allows her little gang to sanitize her correspondence at its leisure, turning over whatever they feel like revealing to congressional investigators.

(Be on guard against liberal attempts to spin this story away by whining about every public official who ever used a public email account. The key detail here is that Clinton rinsed everything through her off-the-books account, in clear violation of requirements instituted because of previous private-email imbroglios – requirements Clinton and her staff could not possibly have misunderstood or been ignorant of.)

We don’t live in a country with the rule of law any more, of course, so Clinton probably won’t be crushed by this new scandal, and it won’t bother Obama at all. It would be a minor miracle if anyone from his slavish press corps even bothered to ask him about it, especially since the news is breaking on the eve of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “controversial” address to Congress (controversial because His Majesty decreed it so) and that’s going to eat up an entire news cycle.

The email revelations might still be a significant contribution to the growing pile of gaffes and scandal crud weighing Clinton’s prospective presidential campaign down. No matter how corrupt and power-hungry the Democrat Party has become, some significant number of its voters must still care about transparency, honesty, and lawful conduct in the mega-government they hold to be far more virtuous than private-sector corporations.

As the story breaks, it’s fun to watch the New York Times try to perform one last service for its beloved Madame Hillary and cushion the blow: “Hillary Rodham Clinton exclusively used a personal email account to conduct government business as secretary of state, State Department officials said, and may have violated federal requirements that officials’ correspondence be retained as part of the agency’s record.”

May have violated…? There’s no question about it, loyal Hillary guardsmen of the New York Times.

It’s not a mistake, a little whoopsie made by a distracted old lady who logged into her Yahoo account a couple of times instead of using her official, archived government account. It was a long-running, systematic effort to evade transparency requirements conducted very deliberately by Clinton, with the assistance of other Administration officials.

She’s hardly the only one to try something like this. We’ve been treated to years worth of stories about officials of this slippery Administration using special email addresses to conduct secret business, most memorably in the case of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who invented a phony male employee called “Richard Windsor” to hide her transmissions. (Maybe Richard Windsor was in charge of preserving all the documentation on politically-delayed regulations a judge just blasted the EPA for destroying with suspicious alacrity after the Landmark Legal Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit over it.)

What makes Hillary Clinton unique is that she didn’t even pretend to use the official system for anything, and it had serious repercussions for congressional investigations, including Benghazi. We’re halfway through the long Times article before it is casually mentioned that Hillary got busted by Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-SC) investigation into that still-unresolved scandal: “The existence of Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account was discovered by a House committee investigating the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi as it sought correspondence between Mrs. Clinton and her aides about the attack.”

The NYT dutifully relates some argle-bargle from Administration flacks and Clintonistas about how wonderfully committed to transparency they all are, but the bottom line is that Clinton keeping all of her correspondence away from the archives clearly and obviously compromises the integrity of whatever she chooses to hand over. (It might have compromised national security, too, because the Times notes “it is not clear whether Mrs. Clinton’s private email account included encryption or other security measures, given the sensitivity of her diplomatic activity.”) There’s no way to conceal the fact that Clinton’s activities are positively astonishing to everyone familiar with the record-keeping policies she evaded:

Her expansive use of the private account was alarming to current and former National Archives and Records Administration officials and government watchdogs, who called it a serious breach.

“It is very difficult to conceive of a scenario — short of nuclear winter — where an agency would be justified in allowing its cabinet-level head officer to solely use a private email communications channel for the conduct of government business,” said Jason R. Baron, a lawyer at Drinker Biddle & Reath who is a former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration.

A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Nick Merrill, defended her use of the personal email account and said she has been complying with the “letter and spirit of the rules.”

Under federal law, however, letters and emails written and received by federal officials, such as the secretary of state, are considered government records and are supposed to be retained so that congressional committees, historians and members of the news media can find them. There are exceptions to the law for certain classified and sensitive materials.

Mrs. Clinton is not the first government official — or first secretary of state — to use a personal email account on which to conduct official business. But her exclusive use of her private email, for all of her work, appears unusual, Mr. Baron said. The use of private email accounts is supposed to be limited to emergencies, experts said, such as when an agency’s computer server is not working.

“I can recall no instance in my time at the National Archives when a high-ranking official at an executive branch agency solely used a personal email account for the transaction of government business,” said Mr. Baron, who worked at the agency from 2000 to 2013.

Regulations from the National Archives and Records Administration at the time required that any emails sent or received from personal accounts be preserved as part of the agency’s records.

But Mrs. Clinton and her aides failed to do so.

How many emails were in Mrs. Clinton’s account is not clear, and neither is the process her advisers used to determine which ones related to her work at the State Department before turning them over.

Of course it’s not “clear.” Nothing is ever “clear” with this bunch.

Maybe they’ll try claiming the official email system was down for Clinton’s entire tenure as Secretary of State. It wouldn’t be much more implausible than the story they expected us to swallow about how half the computers in the IRS crashed simultaneously and wiped out subpoena-responsive correspondence pertaining to the Tea Party targeting scandal.

Speaking of which, we appear to have caught IRS Commissioner John Koskinen lying to Congress about the existence of backups of those emails – he spent much of his congressional testimony bleating about the $20 million the IRS supposedly spent to find them, but it turned out nobody actually tried going to the place where the backups are stored and asking for them – but he doesn’t seem to be looking at any indictments or sanctions. Surely our wise, moral, benevolent, regulation-happy super-State will find room in its hollow heart to forgive Hillary Clinton for a little organized conspiracy to avoid accountability.

We’re told we have to settle for political remedies to lawlessness and deception from our Ruling Class – the only corrective measure they’re supposed to be worried about is the wrath of voters in the next election. They have a vast arsenal of inducements and distractions available to dilute that wrath, with the complicity of a friendly media that routinely decides the most outrageous Democrat abuses are less newsworthy than, say, a Republican former governor saying something about President Obama that his press corps takes umbrage at. It will be up to us to remember this lesson about what Hillary Clinton really thinks of responsibility and honesty. If the Democrats run her as their 2016 candidate, it means they’re cool with this. None of the rest of us should be.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/house-benghazi-committee-busts-hillary-clinton-using-personal-email-evade-transparency-requirements-86725/feed/1Boehner Seeks To Dodge Blame For Coming DHS Funding Cave On Executive Amnestyhttp://www.teaparty.org/boehner-seeks-dodge-blame-coming-dhs-funding-cave-executive-amnesty-86721/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boehner-seeks-dodge-blame-coming-dhs-funding-cave-executive-amnesty
http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-seeks-dodge-blame-coming-dhs-funding-cave-executive-amnesty-86721/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 02:15:54 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86721(Breitbart) - House Speaker John Boehner is under fire on Capitol Hill, as Democrats are poised to take control of the House floor to fund President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty. Even though Republicans have solid majorities in both chambers of Congress, a little known and seldom used House rule seems likely to become the vehicle through ...

]]>(Breitbart) - House Speaker John Boehner is under fire on Capitol Hill, as Democrats are poised to take control of the House floor to fund President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty.

Even though Republicans have solid majorities in both chambers of Congress, a little known and seldom used House rule seems likely to become the vehicle through which a so-called “clean” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill—meaning one that would have no language blocking Obama’s executive amnesty—would pass the House of Representatives.

Senate Republicans already caved last week, passing a clean DHS funding bill for the full rest of the fiscal year after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held Senate Democrats together in blockading the House-passed DHS funding bill that contained language blocking it.

The House, under Boehner’s leadership, tried last week to pass a three-week clean funding bill, but more than 50 conservative Republicans held together to block its passage. Shortly thereafter, the Senate passed a one-week bill via voice vote—after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had told members to go home, meaning that even if they wanted to block the voice vote, most couldn’t get there in time to do so—and then the House passed it shortly thereafter. The president signed the one week DHS continuing resolution into law just moments before the deadline for current DHS funding, meaning DHS narrowly avoided a partial shutdown.

Now, Republicans in the House face yet another crucial deadline this week—but a series of chicanery-type votes and rules may help Congress fund all of DHS including Obama’s executive amnesty through the end of the fiscal year. But doing so could jeopardize Boehner’s speakership, as there’s definitely talk about yet another coup attempt against him should executive amnesty end up getting funded at the end of this process.

As Roll Call reported late last week:

House Speaker John Boehner is under fire on Capitol Hill, as Democrats are poised to take control of the House floor to fund President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty.

Even though Republicans have solid majorities in both chambers of Congress, a little known and seldom used House rule seems likely to become the vehicle through which a so-called “clean” Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding bill—meaning one that would have no language blocking Obama’s executive amnesty—would pass the House of Representatives.

Senate Republicans already caved last week, passing a clean DHS funding bill for the full rest of the fiscal year after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) held Senate Democrats together in blockading the House-passed DHS funding bill that contained language blocking it.

The House, under Boehner’s leadership, tried last week to pass a three-week clean funding bill, but more than 50 conservative Republicans held together to block its passage. Shortly thereafter, the Senate passed a one-week bill via voice vote—after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had told members to go home, meaning that even if they wanted to block the voice vote, most couldn’t get there in time to do so—and then the House passed it shortly thereafter. The president signed the one week DHS continuing resolution into law just moments before the deadline for current DHS funding, meaning DHS narrowly avoided a partial shutdown.

Now, Republicans in the House face yet another crucial deadline this week—but a series of chicanery-type votes and rules may help Congress fund all of DHS including Obama’s executive amnesty through the end of the fiscal year. But doing so could jeopardize Boehner’s speakership, as there’s definitely talk about yet another coup attempt against him should executive amnesty end up getting funded at the end of this process.

As Roll Call reported late last week:

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) moved swiftly to try to block such a scenario.

“If we let Nancy Pelosi execute a privileged motion that would force a vote on the Senate version of DHS approps, it would pass and Obama’s lawless amnesty would be funded until Sept 30th,” King wrote in an email to 160 House GOP members. “There is a way to block that motion.”

King, who has already drafted a bill that would do this, wrote to his colleagues that Republicans can amend the House rule in question with their majority—and thereby block any efforts by Democrats to fund Obama’s amnesty, and stop Boehner from eschewing blame from himself if that’s what happens.

Politico reported over the weekend that close allies of Boehner are worried about a coup attempt that may happen against him if Boehner caves in the end.

“Close allies of Speaker John Boehner are worried that his conservative rivals could move to oust him as soon as next week,” Politico wrote. “Removing a sitting speaker is exceedingly difficult, and such an effort would almost certainly fall short. Yet growing speculation about the possibility of it – coming after Friday’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of conservatives and House Democrats on the homeland security battle — shows how vulnerable the speaker has become.”

Politico detailed exactly what would have to happen for Boehner to be removed in the middle of a Congress, since he was barely re-elected at the beginning of this Congress.

“To remove Boehner from the speaker’s chair, a lawmaker would introduce a ‘motion to vacate,’ which an overwhelming majority of GOP lawmakers would have to back,” Politico wrote. “Republicans say that would never happen in the conference right now.”

While there aren’t any ongoing discussions among members right now about attempting to take down Boehner, that could easily change if the political environment around Obama’s amnesty—and the DHS funding bill that could either block it, or enable its implementation—gets murkier and bloodier, something very likely to happen in the coming days.

“Some of these 52 [Republicans who voted against the 3-week clean DHS funding deal] are more worried about protecting their own careers than protecting their constituents from ISIL,” one Republican lawmaker “close to Boehner” anonymously told Politico. “They are more worried about primaries than they are about the country. This is all aimed at Boehner. They want to take Boehner out.”

“It would take a big uprising to do something and right now, I mean, I think really, truly Boehner is a stabilizing force,” Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), another member close to Boehner, told Politico. “We’ll see what happens. Next Friday will be a big day. Next week will be a big week. We’ll see what he can do.”

Boehner’s closest allies have been attempting to lay blame for the eventual funding of Obama’s executive amnesty on everyone from House Democrats to Senate Democrats to Senate Republicans—but it’s clear to everyone involved that all of this fight at the beginning of this year has all been for show, and the real cave happened when the so-called “cromnibus” passed the House in December.

With the Senate still under Democratic control in that lame duck session, Boehner and his allies including House Appropriations Committee chairman Hal Rogers forced through a 1,771-page $1.1 trillion spending bill that funded all of government except for DHS through the end of September.

Not one member of Congress read that bill before voting on it, as it was impossible to do so based on the length of it in the short time frame they had to do so. But giving up leverage of the full government’s funding back then set the stage for this fight, and moving forward it’s going to be difficult for Boehner to explain that surrender when there were enough votes at the time for a clean CR until the beginning of the new Congress for the full government. The real question when all this is said and done is whether Boehner successfully prevents himself from being blamed—and whether he avoids accountability for enabling Obama’s executive amnesty.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-seeks-dodge-blame-coming-dhs-funding-cave-executive-amnesty-86721/feed/2Obstruction Leader Harry Reid To Attempt Historic Filibuster On Override of Keystone Vetohttp://www.teaparty.org/obstruction-leader-harry-reid-attempt-historic-filibuster-override-keystone-veto-86719/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obstruction-leader-harry-reid-attempt-historic-filibuster-override-keystone-veto
http://www.teaparty.org/obstruction-leader-harry-reid-attempt-historic-filibuster-override-keystone-veto-86719/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 02:10:35 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86719(Washington Free Beacon) - Harry Reid is taking unprecedented steps to block Senate Republicans, even though his actions will result in nothing but procedural delay. In another example of Democrats playing the role of obstructionists, Harry Reid will force the Senate to go through procedural hurdles to delay Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from bringing up the ...

]]>(Washington Free Beacon) - Harry Reid is taking unprecedented steps to block Senate Republicans, even though his actions will result in nothing but procedural delay.

In another example of Democrats playing the role of obstructionists, Harry Reid will force the Senate to go through procedural hurdles to delay Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from bringing up the president’s Keystone XL veto for an override vote.

Last week, President Obama vetoed the popular bipartisan Keystone XL Pipeline bill passed by the Senate.

This week, the Senate is planning a vote to override the president’s veto. Democrats, led by Minority Leader Harry Reid, are set to revoke normal order and attempt to filibuster the override of the President’s veto message.

The cloture vote on a veto message will be the first in the history of the United States Senate. That is because the threshold for a veto override is 67, while the threshold for a cloture vote is only 60. The cloture vote is nothing more than a redundancy since it is assumed cloture would be reached if the Senate were aiming for a two-thirds override.

“The number of senators required to end debate is less than the number required to override a veto,” the Congressional Research Service said.

The Senate majority, joined by a number of Democrats as well, will file for cloture on Wednesday so that the override vote can take place on Thursday.

McConnell called out Reid’s actions on the Senate floor on Monday. He deplored Reid for partisan posturing that stands in direct contrast to the bipartisan spirit exhibited in the Keystone bill.

“There is no reason for a filibuster other than to delay and cause gridlock simply for its own sake.,” McConnell said. “It’s certainly disappointing, but the new Congress won’t be deterred from fighting for jobs and the middle class.”

As it stands, the Senate will easily overcome Reid’s filibuster but need four more Democrats to join them to deliver a historic overturn of the president’s veto. One thing is clear: Reid will go to whatever extremes he can think of just to hold things up in Congress.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obstruction-leader-harry-reid-attempt-historic-filibuster-override-keystone-veto-86719/feed/1GOP Looks To Take A Bite Out Of School Lunch Regshttp://www.teaparty.org/gop-looks-take-bite-school-lunch-regs-86717/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gop-looks-take-bite-school-lunch-regs
http://www.teaparty.org/gop-looks-take-bite-school-lunch-regs-86717/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 02:07:59 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86717(The Hill) - First lady Michelle Obama’s prized healthy school lunch regulations are facing a fresh attack from the GOP-controlled Congress. Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) announced plans Monday to introduce legislation that would relax the U.S. Department of Agriculture rules for schools when it comes to serving whole grain products and reducing sodium levels. The measure ...

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) announced plans Monday to introduce legislation that would relax the U.S. Department of Agriculture rules for schools when it comes to serving whole grain products and reducing sodium levels.

The measure is the opening salvo in a battle between the Obama administration and the new GOP-led Congress, which will consider reauthorizing the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 this year.

“We’ve started to get across that we’ve got to have flexibility,” Hoeven said to attendees of the School Nutrition Association’s (SNA) 2015 Legislative Action Conference Monday in Washington. “We can’t have a federal one-size-fits-all mandate.”

But Hoeven said he’s not fighting the administration’s regulations outright.

“We all want to work with the spirit of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act,” he said. “But we’ve got to have the flexibility to do it right.”

Under Hoeven’s legislation, schools would be allowed to revert back to 2012 standards, which require at least half of all grains served in a school breakfast and lunch to be whole grain rich. The standard now is for 100 percent of all grains offered to be whole grain rich.

The bill would also prevent the USDA from requiring further sodium reductions in school meals below the current level, which took effect in July 2014.

Under the mandate, schools have to keep sodium levels in school lunches for the week below 1,230 milligrams for kindergarten through fifth grade, 1,360 mg for sixth to eighth grade, and 1,420 mg for ninth to 12th grade.

Though he said it is too early to announce any co-sponsors, Hoeven said he’s confident his legislation will gain bipartisan support.

As evidence, he pointed to the Sensible School Lunch Act, a bill he introduced in 2013 to prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from establishing a maximum quantity of grains, meat or meat alternatives that can be served in a meal.

He said the bill was on track to pass, but before Congress could vote, the USDA made the regulatory changes on its own.

If Hoeven’s bill fails to pass as part of the reauthorization of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, he said, he would seek to make the changes via language in legislation needed to fund the Agriculture Department. That route, however, would only impose the changes for a single fiscal year.

“If I can get it in reauthorization, then it’s permanent law,” he said.

The school lunch regulations have been a lightning rod for criticism from Republicans who say the healthier meals — a central component of the first lady’s Let’s Move campaign to fight childhood obesity — are inedible and driving up costs for schools where fewer students are participating in lunch programs.

The first lady’s press office did not answer requests for comment on Hoeven’s bill.

Last year, she pushed back against a GOP-led effort to allow some schools to opt out of the tougher standards altogether.

“The last thing we can afford to do right now is play politics with our kids’ health,” she said then. “Now is not the time to roll back everything we have worked for.”

The USDA estimates that the new school lunch standards will cost school districts $1.2 billion in additional food and labor expenses this year. Roughly 1.4 million fewer students are choosing to eat the school provided lunch.

According to an SNA survey, more than half of all schools offering school meal programs expect to lose money. Only 18 percent expect to break even.

The nonprofit has been pushing Congress to adopt more relaxed standards and has proposed increasing per-meal reimbursement for school breakfasts and lunches by 35 cents.

Hoeven’s announcement comes as the Food and Nutrition Service finalized a rule that institutes hiring standards for the state and local school nutrition program directors, and requires all personnel in the school nutrition programs to complete training or annual continuing education courses.

“Our own programs have become so complicated that you cannot implement them without providing training to employees,” said SNA President Julia Bauscher.

The USDA contends that it’s working to help schools better meet the healthier standards by offering no-salt-added foods and administering funding for new equipment.

In the coming weeks, Cindy Long, child nutrition director for the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, said schools will be awarded $25 million in grants to help them pay for slicers to more efficiently cut fruits and vegetables.

School nutrition professionals at the SNA conference maintained that they are trying to change the palates of children by offering healthier foods like whole grain breads and pastas, but it’s not the same food being served at home.

“We all want to believe that parents are buying whole grain bread, but they’re not,” said Kristen Hennessey, director of food and nutrition services at Plymouth-Canton Community Schools in Michigan. “So they get to school and right away it’s ‘yuck’ because it’s not what they’re used to.”

Teresa Brown, a child nutrition director at St. Charles Parish Public Schools in Louisiana, said she has had a difficult time finding a whole grain biscuit that the kids in her district will eat for breakfast that also fits with the required sodium standards.

“We’re from the south and biscuits are very important to our food culture,” she said. “490 milligrams of sodium is the best we could find.”

But under the healthy school lunch rules, Brown can only serve 540 mg of sodium at breakfast for the week in grades K-5.

“We introduced a honey corn biscuit this year,” she said. “Our students were very upset.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/gop-looks-take-bite-school-lunch-regs-86717/feed/0Obama “Very Interested” In Raising Taxes Through Executive Actionhttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-interested-raising-taxes-executive-action-86714/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-interested-raising-taxes-executive-action
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-interested-raising-taxes-executive-action-86714/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 02:03:51 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86714(Town Hall) - White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed Monday that President Obama is “very interested” in the idea of raising taxes through unitlateral executive action. “The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to ...

“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.

“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.

Sanders sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday identifying a number of executive actions he believes the IRS could take, without any input from Congress, that would close loopholes currently used by corporations. In the past, IRS lawyers have been hesitant to use executive actions to raise significant amounts of revenue, but that same calculation has change in other federal agencies since Obama became president.

Obama’s preferred option would be for Congress to pass a corporate tax hike that would fund liberal infrastructure projects like mass transit. But if Congress fails to do as Obama wishes, just as Congress has failed to pass the immigration reforms that Obama prefers, Obama could take actions unilaterally instead. This past November, for example, Obama gave work permits, Social Security Numbers, and drivers licenses to approximately 4 million illegal immigrants.

Those immigration actions, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will raise federal deficits by $8.8 billion over the next ten years.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-interested-raising-taxes-executive-action-86714/feed/37Boehner, Priebus Ex-Chiefs Of Staff Air Ads To Pressure Conservatives Resisting Executive Amnestyhttp://www.teaparty.org/boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-86711/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty
http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-86711/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 01:58:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86711(Breitbart) - The former chiefs of staff to House Speaker John Boehner and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus are part of a concerted effort to target House conservatives with advertisements aimed at pressuring them to cave to President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and fund it in its entirety through the end of the fiscal year. ...

]]>(Breitbart) - The former chiefs of staff to House Speaker John Boehner and Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus are part of a concerted effort to target House conservatives with advertisements aimed at pressuring them to cave to President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty and fund it in its entirety through the end of the fiscal year.

“An outside group aligned with House GOP leadership will spend $400,000 this week to urge dozens of conservative House Republicans to vote for Department of Homeland Security funding — a new and more aggressive phase in the legislative battle among Republicans that’s consuming Capitol Hill,” Politico wrote about a new effort from American Action Network, a group whose board is home to power players including Boehner’s ex-chief of staff Barry Jackson and immediate previous RNC chief of staff Mike Shields.

“The 30-second spot will run at least 50 times in each district — on broadcast, in prime slots — Tuesday and Wednesday as the House is expected to take up a DHS funding bill,” Politico wrote.

The group says the ad campaign, which also includes radio ads on nationally syndicated shows and digital ads in dozens of other districts represented by House conservatives, is the opening salvo of a larger effort to help Republican leaders pass center-right legislation. American Action Network says it will spend millions of dollars to contact voters in the coming months. The move appears designed to give Boehner cover to end the months-long impasse over homeland security funding.

It’s going to be nearly impossible for Boehner or Priebus to separate the efforts of this group from their own, as Jackson and Shields are members of the two top Republicans’ respective inner circles. It comes as Boehner, meanwhile, is trying to shift blame to anyone else for the coming DHS funding cave that will enable Obama’s executive amnesty. Meanwhile, the environment for a potential coup against Boehner by Republican alternatives on Capitol Hill is improving.

Shields, who left Priebus’ team after the midterm election win to become executive director of AAN, said in a statement to Politico that the plans by the Boehner allies on the AAN board to hammer Republicans for fighting Obama’s executive amnesty will continue for as long as they need to in order to get them to back down.

“If this debate continues, we’ll keep the ads up,” Shields said. “If not, they’re going to be as significant as we can possibly get on broadcast while the debate is happening to educate the voters on this issue.”

AAN is one of the biggest supporters of amnesty, having lobbied Congress in favor of the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill that failed in the last Congress. Other board members include former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), Thayer Lodging Group head and hotelier Fred Malek, former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, and several other lobbyists and former members of Congress from the establishment.

The advertisements’ content directly contradicts rhetoric from Boehner and Priebus.

“The House has acted. We’ve done our job. Senate Democrats are the ones putting us in this precarious position,” Boehner said a couple weeks ago on Fox News Sunday.

Before the midterm elections, Priebus promised Republican voters that members of the new Republican majority—if conservatives stepped up to deliver the elections to the GOP, would defund Obama’s executive amnesty, something he even called “un-American.”

“While I can’t speak for the legislature, I’m very confident we will stop that,” Priebus said back then. “We will do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen: Defunding, going to court, injunction. You name it. It’s wrong. It’s illegal. And for so many reasons, and just the basic fabric of this country, we can’t allow it to happen and we won’t let it happen. I don’t know how to be any stronger than that. I’m telling you, everything we can do to stop it we will.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-priebus-ex-chiefs-staff-air-ads-pressure-conservatives-resisting-executive-amnesty-86711/feed/0The Most Powerful Democrat In Congress Could Be Unseated For The First Time In Nearly 3 Decadeshttp://www.teaparty.org/powerful-democrat-congress-unseated-first-time-nearly-3-decades-86709/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=powerful-democrat-congress-unseated-first-time-nearly-3-decades
http://www.teaparty.org/powerful-democrat-congress-unseated-first-time-nearly-3-decades-86709/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 01:54:06 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86709(Yahoo/Business Insider) - Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is wearing special glasses as he recovers from injuries suffered in an exercise accident in December. The most powerful Democrat in Congress could face his toughest reelection race yet next year. Last week Gravis Insights released a new poll of Minority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nevada) 2016 race and found ...

]]>(Yahoo/Business Insider) - Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is wearing special glasses as he recovers from injuries suffered in an exercise accident in December. The most powerful Democrat in Congress could face his toughest reelection race yet next year.

Last week Gravis Insights released a new poll of Minority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nevada) 2016 race and found him trailing two lesser-known challengers: state Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R) and former Lt. Governor Brian Krolicki (R).

Gravis has a poor track record as a pollster, but its results here are in line with other surveys that have repeatedly suggested Reid could be the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for reelection this cycle.

However, operatives on the both sides of the aisle constantly warn against underestimating Reid, a former boxer who is never afraid to deliver surprising blows in his reelection battles. Indeed, veteran Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston said in a February article in Politico Magazine that Reid could never be counted out.

“All other things being equal, Harry Reid cannot win re-election. He is physically and politically battered. He has added more baggage since the miracle of 2010 than has passed through Dulles,” Ralston wrote. “But all other things are never equal when it comes to Harry Reid, who specializes in near-death experiences and who always seems down but never is out.”

Republicans are most eager to recruit Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) into the Senate race, but the popular and relatively moderate governor has appeared reluctant to challenge Reid so far. According to Ralston, Reid’s most likely foe is state Senate Majority Leader Michael Roberson (R), who was not included in the Gravis poll.

Then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) also faced a tough reelection race in 2014, and polls similarly indicated he was unpopular in his home state. He ultimately won easily against Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) and is now the majority leader.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/powerful-democrat-congress-unseated-first-time-nearly-3-decades-86709/feed/3Obama Says Netanyahu Wrong Before On Iranhttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-says-netanyahu-wrong-iran-86707/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-says-netanyahu-wrong-iran
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-says-netanyahu-wrong-iran-86707/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 01:48:29 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86707(Yahoo/AFP) - US President Barack Obama faced down criticism from Israel’s prime minister over talks with Tehran on Monday, insisting a minimum ten-year deal offers the best hope of avoiding a nuclear-armed Iran. With Netanyahu in Washington to lobby against an agreement and crunch US-Iran talks underway in Switzerland, Obama said Netanyahu had been wrong about ...

]]>(Yahoo/AFP) - US President Barack Obama faced down criticism from Israel’s prime minister over talks with Tehran on Monday, insisting a minimum ten-year deal offers the best hope of avoiding a nuclear-armed Iran.

With Netanyahu in Washington to lobby against an agreement and crunch US-Iran talks underway in Switzerland, Obama said Netanyahu had been wrong about talks in the past.

Obama told Reuters if “Iran is willing to agree to double-digit years of keeping their program where it is.”

If the freeze was verifiable “there’s no other steps we can take that would give us such assurance that they don’t have a nuclear weapon.”

Israel believes a deal as short as ten or 20 years would mean Iran would arrive at the threshold of being a nuclear weapons power in virtually the same political environment as today.

Netanyahu on Monday told a pro-Israel conference that a deal with Iran would “threaten the survival of Israel.”

Obama said that sentiment is wrongheaded, noting Netanyahu’s previous opposition to an interim Iran deal as evidence Israel should back the talks.

“Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50 billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of that has come true.

“It has turned out that in fact, during this period we’ve seen Iran not advance its program. In many ways, it’s rolled back elements of its program.”

Reaching a deal with Iran has become a key foreign policy objective for Obama as he enters the final years of his presidency.

He admitted there was “substantial disagreement” with Israel on the issue, but sought to play down suggestions of a lasting rift with Netanyahu.

“This is not a personal issue. I think that it is important for every country in its relationship with the United States to recognize that the US has a process of making policy.”

In recent days the White House and Obama have been ever-more detailed about what they believe the contours of a deal with Iran might be, raising speculation that a rough agreement could be achieved by a March deadline.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday said the any deal would have to shut down “four pathways” for Iran to acquire fissile material needed to build a nuclear weapon.

That includes dealing with enrichment capacity at the Natanz, Fordow and Arak facilities, as well as ensuring “Iran does not have the capacity to pursue a covert option at a facility that is not yet known to the international community.”

But Obama said the odds were still on Iran rejecting a deal.

“I would say that it is probably still more likely than not that Iran doesn’t get to ‘yes’,” he said.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-says-netanyahu-wrong-iran-86707/feed/1Judge To EPA: Stop Lying And Stop Anti-Conservative Discriminationhttp://www.teaparty.org/judge-epa-stop-lying-stop-anti-conservative-discrimination-86705/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=judge-epa-stop-lying-stop-anti-conservative-discrimination
http://www.teaparty.org/judge-epa-stop-lying-stop-anti-conservative-discrimination-86705/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 01:44:49 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86705(Truth Revolt) - In a Monday ruling, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of lying to the court, displaying “apathy and carelessness” in carrying out the law. In a suit filed in July 2014, Landmark Legal, ...

]]>(Truth Revolt) - In a Monday ruling, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, accused the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of lying to the court, displaying “apathy and carelessness” in carrying out the law.

In a suit filed in July 2014, Landmark Legal, whose President is Mark Levin of talk radio fame, accused the EPA of destroying evidence requested via an earlier Freedom of Information act request:

​Landmark Legal Foundation today asked Federal District Judge Royce Lamberth to sanction the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for destroying or failing to preserve emails and text messages that may have helped document suspected Agency efforts to influence the 2012 presidential election. Landmark’s request is the latest move in the Foundation’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to force the Agency to release emails, text messages and other materials from former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and others who may have delayed the release dates for hot button environmental regulations until after the November 6, 2012, presidential election. Jackson, Deputy Administrator Robert Perciasepe, and other Agency officials admitted in depositions that they used their personal, nongovernmental email accounts and text messages sent and received on government-issued BlackBerries and smart phones to conduct official EPA business. The EPA was obligated under federal law to preserve and search those private emails and text messages for information Landmark is seeking, but the Agency failed to do so.

Judge Lamberth described the “absurdity” of the way the EPA handled a Freedom of Information Act request from the Landmark Legal Foundation and then the court case stemming from it — including late last week admitting it lied to the court about how it went about searching for documents.

In a scorching 25-page opinion, the judge accused the agency of “insulting” him by first claiming it had done a full search for records, then years later retracting that claim without any explanation.

“The recurrent instances of disregard that EPA employees display for FOIA obligations should not be tolerated by the agency,” the judge said in a 25-page ruling. “This court would implore the executive branch to take greater responsibility in ensuring that all EPA FOIA requests — regardless of the political affiliation of the requester — are treated with equal respect and conscientiousness.”

The judge chastised EPA Official Eric W. Wachter for providing, “false information to the court, then the EPA tried to withdraw it on Friday, though never explained how it got things wrong in the first place nor why it waited years to admit it had lied to the court.”

Landmark, a conservative public interest legal group, filed a request in 2012 trying to see what outside groups EPA officials had been speaking with as they wrote new rules and regulations.

EPA slow-walked that request, Landmark sued, and the matter has been in front of the courts ever since.

Just Lamberth said at several turns, the EPA was either lying or terribly incompetent in how it handled the situation, both in terms of the search it performed and how it responded to the court case.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/judge-epa-stop-lying-stop-anti-conservative-discrimination-86705/feed/14Watchdog Group Releases Anti-Christian Bigotry Maphttp://www.teaparty.org/watchdog-group-releases-anti-christian-bigotry-map-86703/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=watchdog-group-releases-anti-christian-bigotry-map
http://www.teaparty.org/watchdog-group-releases-anti-christian-bigotry-map-86703/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:40:41 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86703Finally. Someone is calling out 200-plus groups and organizations in America that openly display bigotry toward the Christian faith. Kudos to the American Family Association for spotlighting those groups – and sending some of them into damage-control mode. (One News Now) – In 2007, and with that same nauseating arrogance that has come to define ...

]]>Finally. Someone is calling out 200-plus groups and organizations in America that openly display bigotry toward the Christian faith. Kudos to the American Family Association for spotlighting those groups – and sending some of them into damage-control mode.

(One News Now) – In 2007, and with that same nauseating arrogance that has come to define him, then presidential candidate Barack Obama duplicitously quipped, “I am absolutely convinced that culture wars are just so ’90s. Their days are growing dark.”

Dark, indeed. America’s soon-to-be cultural-Marxist-in-chief would then spend the greater part of a decade waging war against our nation’s Judeo-Christian culture and heritage at levels, and in ways, unseen in our storied history. Today, his anti-Christian crusade continues unabated. In fact, and with less than two years left to complete his baleful conspiracy, this neo-pagan extremist has begun to rapidly accelerate his unravelings.

Chief among his targets for destruction are conservative and Christian organizations and individuals who pose a threat to his envisaged “fundamental transformation” of our once-Judeo-Christian nation. The Obama vision? A godless, Euro-socialist dystopia crafted in his own secular-humanist self-image.

Still, even the president of the United States, alone, cannot destroy an entire nation from within. His sinister (yes, sinister) objective of a Christ-less society (Jesus is the real target here) is shared by many who, like Obama, labor under the darkest of spiritual deceptions.

To accomplish the larger “progressive” dream of unmaking America, this man, this cagey figure of whom we still know very little, finds himself flanked by powerful comrades in arms – by hundreds of equally extremist and very well-funded anti-Christian groups.

That’s why I was so encouraged this past week to see one of America’s largest and most effective mainstream Christian organizations fighting back. The Mississippi-based American Family Association (AFA) has developed and released a tremendous resource for the fair-minded American public. It’s an interactive “Anti-Christian bigotry map,” which identifies “more than 200 groups and organizations that openly display bigotry toward the Christian faith.”

The AFA has also announced that it will be monitoring these anti-Christian segregationists’ activities, reporting on those activities to the general public and further warning the tens of millions of Christian Americans of specifics relative to their radical campaign of religious cleansing.

“The website … includes an interactive map that identifies groups whose actions are deeply intolerant of the Christian religion,” notes AFA. “Their actions, for example, have endorsed efforts to silence Christians and to remove all public displays of Christian heritage and faith in America.”

Among the over 200 anti-Christian organizations exposed by the Christian watchdog group are some of the most strident atheist, humanist and “LGBT” extremist outfits in America. The ironically named Human Rights Campaign (HRC), for example, is listed among them. The HRC’s co-founder is accused homosexual pedophile Terry Bean. He was arrested a few months ago for allegedly raping a 15-year-old boy.

Another of the more high-profile groups listed is the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The SPLC’s propagandist activities have been linked by the FBI to anti-Christian domestic terrorism (something I long ago predicted would happen).

Also on the list are the Freedom From Religion Foundation; the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN); and many more.

“A common practice of these groups is threatening our nation’s schools, cities and states,” said AFA president Tim Wildmon.

“By threat of lawsuit, they demand that prayer be removed from schools and city council meetings, that Ten Commandments monuments be stricken from courthouses, and that memorial crosses be purged from cemeteries and parks,” he added.

“Families and businesses that express a Christian worldview on social issues often face vicious retaliation from anti-Christian zealots, and it’s time to call them out for their intolerance,” urged Wildmon. “Because of anti-Christian bigotry, private business owners have been sued and forced to close their businesses.”

AFA is warning Christian Americans to be vigilant in that some associated with the 200-plus anti-Christian groups have actually “committed violent crimes against Christians and faith-based groups,” and that “physical and profane verbal assaults against Christians” have been, and continue to be, regularly used as “angry methods of intimidation.”

In 2012, for instance, SPLC supporter and homosexual activist Floyd Lee Corkins entered the Washington, DC, headquarters of another of America’s largest mainstream Christians organizations, the Family Research Council (FRC), armed with a gun and a backpack full of ammunition. He also had 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches he intended to smear in the faces of FRC employees after he slaughtered them all (FRC had recently defended the food chain’s COO, Dan Cathy, for pro-natural marriage statements).

Court documents and FBI evidence later revealed, as many had suspected, that the SPLC was, while indirectly so, at least to some degree complicit in this particular act of anti-Christian terrorism. Corkins had used, and confessed to having been incited by, the SPLC’s anti-Christian propaganda.

Thankfully, the SPLC, the HRC and hundreds more of these anti-Christian organizations are now being called out and held accountable. Understandably, they’ve begun scrambling for damage control. They’re on the defensive.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/watchdog-group-releases-anti-christian-bigotry-map-86703/feed/2Feds Seeking ‘Wearable Alcohol Biosensors’ to Track How Much Americans Drinkhttp://www.teaparty.org/feds-seeking-wearable-alcohol-biosensors-track-much-americans-drink-86700/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feds-seeking-wearable-alcohol-biosensors-track-much-americans-drink
http://www.teaparty.org/feds-seeking-wearable-alcohol-biosensors-track-much-americans-drink-86700/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:35:32 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86700$300,000 challenge to create real-time monitoring of alcohol consumption (Free Beacon) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering up to $300,000 for the creation of bracelets that can track how much Americans drink. The federal agency issued a challenge on Monday for individuals and businesses to invent a “wearable alcohol biosensor” that shows ...

(Free Beacon) – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering up to $300,000 for the creation of bracelets that can track how much Americans drink.

The federal agency issued a challenge on Monday for individuals and businesses to invent a “wearable alcohol biosensor” that shows a person’s blood alcohol level in real time. The government envisions a device that can be worn by Americans “in the course of their daily lives.”

“Current technologies for real time monitoring of alcohol consumption, used in criminal justice applications, have performed adequately, but have disadvantages for broader use,” the NIH said in anotice announcing the challenge in the Federal Register.

The NIH’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) said it wants a device that can store data on how much a person drinks.

“The device should be inconspicuous, low profile, and appealing to the wearer,” the notice said. “The design can take the form of jewelry, clothing, or any other format located in contact with the human body. A non-invasive technology is preferred.”

The NIAAA said that the device should be able to take faster readings than current technology, which only provides “alcohol monitoring” every 30 minutes.

“We are seeking a solution that improves on this interval and most closely approximates real time monitoring and data collection,” they said. “The device should be able to quantitate blood alcohol level, interpret and store the data, or transmit it to a smartphone or other device by wireless transmission.”

“Data storage and transmission must be completely secure in order to protect the privacy of the individual,” NIAAA added.

The government will accept submissions between now and Dec. 1, followed by a judging period in January 2016. First and second prize winners will receive $200,000 and $100,000, respectively, and will be announced in February of next year.

The NIH said the creation of an alcohol biosensor will “advance the mission” of the NIAAA, which seeks to curb alcoholism and abuse.

“The advent of alcohol biosensors that can be worn discreetly and used by individuals in the course of their daily lives will advance the mission of NIAAA in the arenas of research, treatment, and rehabilitation,” the notice said.

“The NIH believes that this challenge will stimulate investment from public and private sectors in the development of functional alcohol biosensors that will be appealing to individuals, treatment providers, and researchers,” it said.

A panel at NIAAA will judge submissions based on accuracy of data collection, functionality, safeguards for privacy, and “appeal and acceptability to wearers.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/feds-seeking-wearable-alcohol-biosensors-track-much-americans-drink-86700/feed/0For the First Time on Camera, Meet the Man Who Exposed the Gruber Videoshttp://www.teaparty.org/first-time-camera-meet-man-exposed-gruber-videos-86697/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=first-time-camera-meet-man-exposed-gruber-videos
http://www.teaparty.org/first-time-camera-meet-man-exposed-gruber-videos-86697/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:30:12 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86697(Daily Signal) – Rich Weinstein is the single person considered most responsible for exposing one of the biggest blows to the Affordable Care Act’s image: a series of videos in which a key Obamacare architect discusses the “stupidity of the American people” and how that helped get the bill passed. Now, Weinstein is speaking on ...

(Daily Signal) – Rich Weinstein is the single person considered most responsible for exposing one of the biggest blows to the Affordable Care Act’s image: a series of videos in which a key Obamacare architect discusses the “stupidity of the American people” and how that helped get the bill passed.

Now, Weinstein is speaking on camera for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal.

An investment adviser from Philadelphia, Weinstein says he began researching the Affordable Care Act when his own health insurance was canceled in late 2013.

“When they said, ‘If you like your plan, you can keep your plan,’ I believed that just like everybody else,” says Weinstein.

Using nothing more complicated than Google, Weinstein unearthed a treasure trove of publicly available information, including embarrassing videos starring Jonathan Gruber.

Gruber is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist described as a key architect of Obamacare. He reportedly received $400,000 in federal consulting contracts to provide expertise on the Affordable Care Act. He previously helped design the Massachusetts health care law that is considered a model for Obamacare.

The ‘Stupidity’ Videos

In several videos unearthed by Weinstein, Gruber refers to voters as “stupid.”

“And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but, basically, that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass,” Gruber says of the Affordable Care Act in an academic lecture on Oct. 4, 2013.

In another, Gruber discusses how a trick in wording hides a large tax that is passed onto consumers.

“Because the American voter is too stupid to understand the difference,” Gruber says, prompting laughter from the audience.

Weinstein says when he first heard the comments on the video he’d found, “I just thought he was trying to put one over on us. Not just on me or you, but on everybody.”

Transparency Comments

Weinstein also discovered videos in which Gruber refers to the intentional lack of transparency in the Affordable Care Act.

“I wish … we could make it all transparent but I’d rather have this law than not,” Gruber says in one excerpt.

In another, he states, “If you had a law in which it said healthy people are gonna pay in, you made [it] explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.”

Weinstein spent countless hours scouring the Internet. As he found more videos and information, he became disenchanted with the news media.

“It’s pretty disappointing,” he says. “The media just has not had any, very little intellectual curiosity … all these videos were out there in plain sight.”

The ‘Noblis’ Video

Weinstein considers what he calls the “Noblis video” to be the most important of the bunch. It shows Gruber speaking at a technical conference sponsored by a company called Noblis on Jan. 18, 2012.

The find is considered so significant, it’s entered as evidence in the U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act that justices will hear Wednesday.

In that case, King v. Burwell, the administration argues the Affordable Care Act confers federal assistance—subsidies—to qualified consumers in all 50 states.

Opponents, a majority of the states, argue the law only applies to the 16 states that set up their own health care exchanges to sell insurance under Obamacare.

Gruber has been quoted as calling the challenger’s theory “nutty.” Yet, in the Noblis video, recorded nine months before HealthCare.gov went live, he agrees with the opposing side. He clearly states that tax subsidies were only meant for states that established exchanges.

“What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits—but your citizens still pay the taxes that support this bill,” says Gruber. “So you’re essentially saying [to] your citizens ‘you’re going to pay all the taxes to help all the other states in the country.’”

If the Supreme Court believes what Gruber said in the video is correct, Weinstein says it’s “obviously a big wrench” in Obamacare. It’s estimated that more than 5 million people could lose their subsidies.

“Millions of people would lose their health insurance subsidies and therefore would no longer be able to afford health insurance,” says Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

‘Lack of Economic Understanding’

In still more videos excerpts, Gruber talks about ways to mask a health care-related tax on the public by “mislabeling it” as a tax on insurance companies.

“…Calling it a tax on insurance plans rather than a tax on people, when we all know it’s a tax on people who hold those insurance plans,” says Gruber.

Gruber also explains, “We tax the insurance companies, they pass it on [in the form of] higher prices, that offsets the tax break we get, it ends up being the same thing. It’s a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”

After Weinstein helped expose the videos, Gruber apologized for his embarrassing remarks. He called them “inexcusably arrogant” and says he was speaking “off the cuff.”

President Obama has said he does not agree with Gruber’s assessment of the American public’s intellect, and that the former adviser’s views do not reflect “the process.” The White House did not respond to a request for further comment for this story.

The ‘Cadillac Tax’

Ask Weinstein what is the biggest shoe yet to drop regarding the Affordable Care Act and he immediately points to the so-called “Cadillac tax.”

The Cadillac tax is a huge tax that will be levied on high-end insurance plans—the “Cadillacs” of health insurance.

Starting in 2018, Obamacare imposes the 40 percent tax on individual health plans costing more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family. The idea is to press employers to offer less generous plans.

Many people, including Weinstein, believe it will prompt employers to cut out health insurance altogether, forcing some of the 158 million people who are currently insured through work onto the Obamacare exchanges for plans they don’t like as much, with limited choices and higher deductibles.

Weinstein says thanks to Obamacare, his insurance premiums have doubled. Today, he has connected with three other “citizen journalists” who say they’re committed to doing the job that the news media is not doing well: critically investigating the Affordable Care Act.

“One person can make a difference,” says Weinstein. “I’m nobody special. I had a problem, I got onto Google … but anybody can make a difference and if you don’t like what’s going on, you can make a difference.”

Gruber Removed

Last week, Gruber was one of four members removed from the Massachusetts’ Health Connector Board, which oversees the state’s health care law.

In asking for the resignations, Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said he’s establishing a new leadership team.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/first-time-camera-meet-man-exposed-gruber-videos-86697/feed/0Obama Turns His Focus to Racial Politics Ahead of Selma Commemorationhttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-turns-focus-racial-politics-ahead-selma-commemoration-86695/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-turns-focus-racial-politics-ahead-selma-commemoration
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-turns-focus-racial-politics-ahead-selma-commemoration-86695/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:22:02 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86695(CNS New) – President Barack Obama says now is the moment for police to make changes that build trust in minority communities. The president on Monday announced findings of a policing task force he appointed in response to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Obama ...

]]>(CNS New) – President Barack Obama says now is the moment for police to make changes that build trust in minority communities.

The president on Monday announced findings of a policing task force he appointed in response to the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

Obama says the shooting in Ferguson and another in New York City exposed “deep rooted frustration” in communities of color. Obama says the task force found that police must improve trust with their communities.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-turns-focus-racial-politics-ahead-selma-commemoration-86695/feed/1Rev. Graham: ‘Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitic’ Muslims Influencing WH Against Netanyahuhttp://www.teaparty.org/rev-graham-anti-israel-anti-semitic-muslims-influencing-wh-netanyahu-86693/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rev-graham-anti-israel-anti-semitic-muslims-influencing-wh-netanyahu
http://www.teaparty.org/rev-graham-anti-israel-anti-semitic-muslims-influencing-wh-netanyahu-86693/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:09:28 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86693(CNS News) – Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said the liberal media, Congress, and the White House were shunning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic” Muslims were influencing the Obama administration against Israel. The evangelical leader also stressed that this pressure is being brought to bear against ...

]]>(CNS News) – Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said the liberal media, Congress, and the White House were shunning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic” Muslims were influencing the Obama administration against Israel.

The evangelical leader also stressed that this pressure is being brought to bear against a president who “was raised with a strong Muslim influence in his life,” his father and step-father, and the schools he attended.

Rev. Graham added that Netanyahu, who is scheduled to speak before Congress on March 3, is a friend of the United States who “deserves our respect,” and yet is being treated by these Muslim lobbyists “as an enemy.”

“Why is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being shunned by the liberal media, congress, and President Barack Obama?” said Rev. Graham in a Feb. 28 Facebook post. ”I believe it’s because this administration has been heavily influenced by Muslims speaking into and giving advice in various areas of the White House.”

“They are anti-Israel and anti-Semitic—and they are influencing the president who as we all know was raised with a strong Muslim influence in his life,” said Rev. Graham, who also runs the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse.

“His father and his stepfather were Muslims and he attended Islamic schools. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been a friend to the US and deserves our respect,” said Rev. Graham. ”They’re treating our friend and ally as an enemy.”

The White House has been negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program and is working on a deal that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reportedly has raised concerns about and likely will address in his March 3 speech before Congress.

Rev. Graham, 62, is the son of world-renowned preacher Billy Graham. He often speaks out against radical Islam and how political correctness about Islam is affecting the culture, the law, and the U.S. government.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/rev-graham-anti-israel-anti-semitic-muslims-influencing-wh-netanyahu-86693/feed/1Boehner: President Has Acted ‘Far Beyond His Constitutional Authority’http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-president-acted-far-beyond-constitutional-authority-86691/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=boehner-president-acted-far-beyond-constitutional-authority
http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-president-acted-far-beyond-constitutional-authority-86691/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:07:19 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86691(CNS News) – As Democrats and even some Republicans blast conservatives for refusing to pass a clean Homeland Security funding bill, House Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday it’s important to look at why this is happening: “But remember what is causing this,” Boehner told CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It’s the president of the United ...

]]>(CNS News) – As Democrats and even some Republicans blast conservatives for refusing to pass a clean Homeland Security funding bill, House Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday it’s important to look at why this is happening:

“It’s the president of the United States overreaching. And that’s not just on immigration. You know, 38 times he made unilateral changes to Obamacare — many of these, I believe, far beyond his constitutional authority to do so.

“And so the frustration in the country, represented through the frustration of our members, has people scared to death that the president is just running the country right off the cliff.”

Boehner noted that President Obama “took actions with regard to immigration that were far beyond what the law allows him to do.” Obama himself said 22 different times that he didn’t have the authority to do what he eventually ended up doing.

“I made it clear we were going to do everything we could to block the president’s executive overreach,” Boehner said. “And that’s the basis of the problem that we’re trying to deal with.”

Boehner described the House as a “rambunctious” chamber, with its 435 members having “a lot of different ideas about what we should and shouldn’t be doing.”

Conservative Republicans insist that a DHS funding bill should include an amendment that bars funding for President Obama’s executive amnesty, including Social Security Numbers for millions of illegal immigrants. Democrats refuse to even consider such an amendment, and now a number of Republicans want to give up on it.

The House on Friday passed a stopgap bill to keep money flowing to DHS for an additional week while the argument continues. Republican leaders are now insisting on negotiations with the Senate, which passed a clean DHS funding bill — one without an immigration rider — on Friday.

“We want to go to conference with the Senate,” Boehner said. “Now, they have made clear that they don’t want to go to conference, that they’re going to have a vote. And when they–if they vote, in fact, not to go to conference, this bill may be coming back to the House.”

And what if the action does shift again to the House? Boehner was asked if he has promised Democrat leaders that he will bring up a clean DHS funding bill for a vote in the House later this week:

“The promise I made to Ms. Pelosi is the same promise I made to Republicans, that we would follow regular order,” Boehner responded. “The bill is back in the Senate. We have asked for a conference with the Senate. And the Senate majority leader at the time, in May of 2013, said–and I quote–”We aren’t afraid to try to resolve our differences in a conference committee.” This has been the custom of the Senate and the House of Representatives for almost 200 years.”

Asked if it’s easier to deal with Democrats or conservative members of his own party, Boehner said, “I like dealing with both parties.”

He also acknowledged that House Republicans “get in an argument over tactics from time to time.”

“This President has created this frustration. And, remember, you see a frustration in the House. That is reflective and representative the frustration in our district. This president doesn’t want to work with the American public. He’s creating these problems when we’re trying to work it out. The best thing that can happen is that we go to conference, and we settle our differences.”

McCarthy also insisted that despite a “difference of opinion” on strategy and tactics, Republicans are “united” in principle. “We are united in the principle there is a right way and wrong way to legislate. Unfortunately, the president chose the wrong way.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/boehner-president-acted-far-beyond-constitutional-authority-86691/feed/8Fears Grow of New Christian Slaughter by ISIShttp://www.teaparty.org/fears-grow-new-christian-slaughter-isis-86689/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fears-grow-new-christian-slaughter-isis
http://www.teaparty.org/fears-grow-new-christian-slaughter-isis-86689/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 18:02:48 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86689(Newsmax) – Obama administration officials fear that the Islamic State is planning an “on-camera slaughter of major proportions” after kidnapping hundreds of Christians in Syria, according to the New York Post. Even as reports surfaced that 19 of the captive Christian Assyrians had been freed by the militants, a U.S. official said authorities are concerned that ISIS could ...

]]>(Newsmax) – Obama administration officials fear that the Islamic State is planning an “on-camera slaughter of major proportions” after kidnapping hundreds of Christians in Syria, according to the New York Post.

Even as reports surfaced that 19 of the captive Christian Assyrians had been freed by the militants, a U.S. official said authorities are concerned that ISIS could stage a mass execution and put the resulting horrifying video on the Internet.

“What is very disconcerting is that they rounded up all of these people, and we know from experience that they usually kill their captives on film and in the most brutal fashion,” the official said.

The number of Assyrians seized by ISIS last week has reportedly been between 220 and 300.

Referring to the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians killed recently in Libya, the official added, “Remember, they’ve already gone from beheading one person on camera to, most recently, beheading 21 people on camera.”

The warning came as Pope Francis led a massive pray at St. Peter’s Square in Rome for the kidnapped Christians, while urging the world to take action to prevent more deaths.

“Everyone, in line with their possibilities, [should] act to alleviate the suffering,” the Pontiff said.

Although it was not known why ISIS allegedly freed 19 hostages, The Associated Press said that they were all 50 years or older, suggesting that age was a likely reason.

Bashir Saedi, a senior official in the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said that 16 men and three women arrived safely Sunday at the Church of the Virgin Mary in the city of Hassakeh.

He said they were all from the village of Tal Ghoran in northeast Syria and had traveled by bus from the ISIS-held town of Shaddadeh, south of Hassakeh.

The Assyrian Human Rights Network also reported the release, and published photographs on its Facebook page that it said taken from Hassakeh showing a crowd dressed in winter coats greeting the returnees.

The network said the captives had been ordered released by a Shariah court after paying an unspecified amount of money levied as a tax on non-Muslims.

Another US military official also told the Post that the administration said there were various scenarios awaiting the captive Christians.

“One is enslavement, which consists of cooking, cleaning and digging holes for [ISIS] soldiers on the front lines,” the official said. “And then of course, there’s the scenario involving executions. That’s our greatest fear.”

]]>(Newsmax) – Sen. John McCain is charging the Obama administration’s foreign policy is “delusional” and says Secretary of State John Kerry’s global diplomacy has “accomplished nothing except mileage.”

In an appearance on MSNBC, the Arizona Republican also calls Russian President Vladimir Putin a “meglomaniac” and “pariah.”

McCain’s interview came after Kerry held talks in Geneva Monday with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/john-mccain-obamas-iran-foreign-policy-delusional-86687/feed/0Military Satellite Explodes Above Earthhttp://www.teaparty.org/military-satellite-explodes-earth-86683/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=military-satellite-explodes-earth
http://www.teaparty.org/military-satellite-explodes-earth-86683/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:59:04 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86683Satellite had been in orbit since 1995 (Telegraph) – A US military satellite exploded after detecting an unexplained “sudden spike in temperature”, sending dozens of chunks of debris tumbling into different orbits around Earth. Civilian company CelesTrak was first to notice the explosion of the once-secret weather satellite and the US Air Force subsequently confirmed ...

(Telegraph) – A US military satellite exploded after detecting an unexplained “sudden spike in temperature”, sending dozens of chunks of debris tumbling into different orbits around Earth.

Civilian company CelesTrak was first to notice the explosion of the once-secret weather satellite and the US Air Force subsequently confirmed that it had been lost.

The satellite was an ageing component of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program which the US military began developing the in the 1960s to help plan reconnaissance and surveillance missions. In 1972 the system was declassified, and data made available to civilian scientists.

The lost satellite was the 13th to be launched as part of DMSP, designated DMSP-F13, and had been in Earth orbit since 1995.

Air Force Space Command confirmed to SpaceNews.com that the “catastrophic event” came after “a sudden spike in temperature” was detected, followed by “an unrecoverable loss of attitude control”.

While operators were deciding how to “render the vehicle safe” they detected a debris cloud which indicated that the satellite had been destroyed.

The explosion has caused at least 43 pieces of debris to scatter into orbit, which are now being tracked by the US Air Force.

Air Force Col. John Giles, the Joint Space Operations Center’s director, toldSpaceNews.com: “While the initial response is complete, JSpOC personnel will continue to assess this event to learn more about what happened and what it will mean for users within this orbit.”

Due to the age of DMSP-F13 it was no longer a critical part of the network, and the US government expects that its loss will cause only a “slight reduction” in real-time weather data.

Like all DMSP satellites it orbited the earth at an altitude of around 500 miles in a “sun-synchronous orbit” – meaning that they flew in a path taking in the north and south poles.

On each path around the earth, which took roughly 101 minutes, they would see a slightly different part of the planet. This would give each satellite a complete view of the entire planet’s surface twice a day.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/military-satellite-explodes-earth-86683/feed/2DPS REPORT: Mexican Drug Cartels are Texas’ ‘Most Significant’ Threathttp://www.teaparty.org/dps-report-mexican-drug-cartels-texas-significant-threat-86681/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dps-report-mexican-drug-cartels-texas-significant-threat
http://www.teaparty.org/dps-report-mexican-drug-cartels-texas-significant-threat-86681/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:55:52 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86681(Breitbart) – A Department of Public Safety (DPS) report states that Mexican drug cartels are among the “most significant” threats facing Texas. Mexican drug cartels continue to operate throughout Texas carrying out violent attacks throughout the state as well as controlling the flow of illegal aliens and drug trafficking, the report states. Texas’ top law ...

]]>(Breitbart) – A Department of Public Safety (DPS) report states that Mexican drug cartels are among the “most significant” threats facing Texas. Mexican drug cartels continue to operate throughout Texas carrying out violent attacks throughout the state as well as controlling the flow of illegal aliens and drug trafficking, the report states.

Texas’ top law enforcement agency places the spread of Mexican drug cartel operations across the state as one of the top current security threats. The meteoric rise to power of Mexican cartels is attributed to a porous border as well as the unending demand for drugs, commercial sex and forced labor, the agency wrote.

The stern warning came in a leaked report from DPS to state lawmakers requesting additional funding for the current border surge where hundreds of state troopers patrol the Rio Grande Valley. The request comes in response to an unprecedented spike in human smuggling and drug trafficking activity along the border. The report was first published by the Houston Chronicle.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, the report addresses the operational presence of cartels throughout the state. It also addresses the issue of illegal aliens with ties to terrorist organizations who have made their way into the country and are working to smuggle in other potential terrorists.

“There is ample and compelling evidence that the Texas-Mexico border is not secure, and this lack of security undermines public safety and homeland security in every region of the state,” the report states. “Mexican cartels constitute the greatest organized crime threat to Texas … Mexican cartels control virtually all illegal smuggling activities through the U.S.-Mexico border and continue to supply most of the illicit drugs in the U.S. market.”

Some of the many violent acts carried out by drug cartels include multiple kidnappings across the nation where the criminal organization targets the relatives of individuals believed to have either stolen or lost a drug load, the report revealed.

Other criminal acts by cartel members in Texas that raise red flags for law enforcement include:

A May 2013 murder in Southlake where three cartel hitmen spent two years preparing the execution of a Mexican lawyer who represented members of the Gulf Cartel. To carry out the murder, the hitmen, two of whom were former Mexican, cops spent a long time tailing the individual and setting up a complex surveillance network of video cameras to track his movements. Breitbart Texas previously reported on the arrest of these cartel hitmen.

In July 2014, two Edinburg police officers were injured in a fierce firefight with a member of the Texas Syndicate. These gang members were working for the Gulf Cartel in the border town of La Joya. The officers had been trying to arrest the man in connection with the execution of a 19-year-old in relation to a drug deal gone bad. The teen had been shot in the back of the head. In addition to the report,Breitbart Texas also reported on that shootout.

In November 2013, members of the Gulf Cartel wearing vests with insignia from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office carried out a series of home invasions in Las Milpas. The cartel members passed themselves off as law enforcement as they burst in through the door holding residents at gunpoint and demanding cash and drugs. The gunmen made off with at least $100,000 in cash in one of those raids.

In June 2013, La Joya police rescued five illegal immigrants who had been kidnapped by a man claiming to be a cartel member. The man had been holding them for ransom.

Mexican cartel members have also taken advantage of the recent increase of illegal aliens trying to get to America who have arrived in their territory. In addition to making a profit by getting them into the country, cartel members are using them to tie up law enforcement by sending them as bait while drug smugglers are able to move narcotics with little problem, the report revealed.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/dps-report-mexican-drug-cartels-texas-significant-threat-86681/feed/1Leaked Report: Deported Illegal Aliens Freely Jump Border to Commit Crimeshttp://www.teaparty.org/leaked-report-deported-illegal-aliens-freely-jump-border-commit-crimes-86679/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=leaked-report-deported-illegal-aliens-freely-jump-border-commit-crimes
http://www.teaparty.org/leaked-report-deported-illegal-aliens-freely-jump-border-commit-crimes-86679/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:48:32 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86679(Breitbart) – A DPS report leaked February 24th warns that “Deported criminal aliens too often exploit the porous border and return to Texas to commit additional crimes.” Spencer Golvach is a victim of one of those crimes. He was sitting at a stoplight when an illegal alien who had been deported four times between 2003 and ...

]]>(Breitbart) – A DPS report leaked February 24th warns that “Deported criminal aliens too often exploit the porous border and return to Texas to commit additional crimes.” Spencer Golvach is a victim of one of those crimes. He was sitting at a stoplight when an illegal alien who had been deported four times between 2003 and 2010 randomly shot him. The calloused criminal then drove several miles and randomly shot Juan Garcia. He shot at another couple some miles up the road and was killed by a deputy who heard the gun shots.

Breitbart Texas interviewed Dan Golvach, Spencer’s father. During the videointerview the grieving father said “my son is dead because the concept of borders is dead.” Mr. Golvach wants politicians and the public to know that the murderer had a history of violent crime, was deported, but “A Victor Reyes, an illegal alien, pulls up next to him, pulls his gun out, rolled his window down and blew my son’s brains out.”

Mr. Golvach believes stiffer jail time could be a solution to defer reentry. He said “I think that if you are a felon, and you have committed crimes in this country, and you have been deported, well there has to be some sort of deterrent that when you are sitting on the other side of that border that you think about.”

Victor Rodriguez Reyes was born in Reynosa, Mexico. He was convicted of burglary of a building in Hidalgo County in 2002. He pleaded guilty and served three years of probation, did 120 hours of community service, and was assessed a fine. In 2003, Reyes broke a beer bottle on a man’s head and was charged with aggravated assault, a state felony. A motion to revoke his probation was granted and he was deported. In 2004, he illegally crossed the border twice and was deported again. In 2006, he was convicted of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury related to special maritime circumstances. He served 63 months in federal prison and in 2010 was deported again.

The factual circumstances by which Reyes happened to be in Texas in 2015 to murder Spencer Golvach is unknown. What we do know is that he obviously got through the border.

It has been difficult to determine the background of Victor Reyes because there are approximately 10,000 U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement records for a “Victor Reyes” from Mexico. This search does not include “Victor Reyes” from Central America and other countries. Reyes has also used “Victor Reyes Rodriguez” as an alias.

Mr. Golvach wants the public to know that the man who killed his son and was deported, was a criminal who had been convicted of crimes of violence. Spencer’s murderer wasinitially reported by law enforcement and the media to be a “Victor Manuel Reyes” who had been found guilty of drug crimes.

There is ample and compelling evidence that the Texas-Mexico border is not secure, and this lack of security undermines public safety and homeland security in every region of the state. Crime has become increasingly transitory, transnational, organized, and discreet, and terrorism has become more disaggregated. An unsecure border with Mexico is the state’s most significant vulnerability as it provides criminals and would-be terrorists from around the world a reliable means to enter Texas and the nation undetected. This is especially concerning today, in light of the recent attacks and schemes around the world.

The DPS report was submitted to the 84th Texas Legislature and the Office of the Governor in response to a June 2014 directive by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. DPS was asked to address Operation Strong Safety.

The Washington Post reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety said the report “was not meant for public distribution.” Department press secretary Tom Vinger was reported to have emailed the Post and said “that report was inappropriately obtained and [the Chronicle was] not authorized to possess or post the law enforcement sensitive document.” Breitbart Texas independently verified this statement with the DPS press secretary.

The DPS Report stated “A percentage of the illegal aliens (IA) smuggled into Texas are committing crimes throughout the state, including homicide, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, and sex trafficking. Deported criminal aliens too often exploit the porous border and return to Texas to commit additional crimes.”

It also recounted crimes committed by individuals who had been deported numerous times. Two illegal immigrants who had been deported multiple times, were recently charged in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Willacy County, Texas. Only Cameron County separates Willacy County from the Texas-Mexico border.

The dangers of a porous border do not affect just those on the border. An IA who was deported multiple times has been charged with the sexual assault of a 9-year-old Parker County girl in North Texas. As late as January 2015, an illegal alien sex offender was arrested in Austin. He had been deported in 2012 after a conviction for indecency with a child. In 2013, he reentered the U.S. by swimming the Rio Grande River near Laredo.

These criminal threats are not always readily apparent. The dated mugshot provided of Reyes from his 2001 arrest in Hidalgo County shows he was not a tattooed, gold-toothed, gang-member-looking-thug, seen in other criminals’ mug shots. He was someone who would not have raised any alarms if he were seen in your neighborhood. When asked how seeing Reyes’ mugshot affected him, Dan Golvach, told Breitbart Texas “Thank God I don’t have to look at him in Court!”

The Report on Operation Strong Safety warned that “The consequences of a porous international border with Mexico are not limited to the border; rather, they reverberate throughout the state and nation. In fact, many of the most serious consequences do not occur in our border communities. Instead they occur in our major urban areas where there is a proliferation of gangs with direct access to the drugs and people smuggled into Texas within the high-demand retail markets.”

It also detailed the effect of the Mexican Cartel on violent crimes in the United States. “The Mexican cartels have also carried out acts of violence in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S., including murders and kidnappings, aimed at recovering lost drug loads, intimidating or silencing rivals and witnesses and retaliation against their enemies.” Nearly all illegal aliens who illegally enter the United States made use of alien smuggling organizations, which are nearly all associated with Mexican cartels.

DPS reported that 313,100 illegal aliens were apprehended in Texas in 2014. Department of Homeland Security statistics reveal that more than 96,000 illegal aliens were arrested for criminal offenses and put into Texas jails between June 2011 and December 2014. Those arrests included 561 homicide charges, 27,588 assault charges, 8,984 burglary charges, 31,154 drug charges, 394 kidnapping charges, 17,133 theft charges, 23,476 obstructing law enforcement charges, 1,972 robbery charges, 2,836 sexual assault charges, and 3,770 weapons charges. The DPS Report stated that these numbers are likely an undercount of all the crime in Texas committed by IAs.

The Report stated that “The Texas State Legislature long ago recognized the importance and linkage of border security to public safety, and consistently, over the last several sessions, has dedicated substantial resources to increase capabilities in the border region.”

Victor Reyes came over the border at will, and deportation and borders obviously meant nothing to him.

Mr. Golvach told Breitbart Texas “this is a place of total despair. There is no healing from this.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/leaked-report-deported-illegal-aliens-freely-jump-border-commit-crimes-86679/feed/14Broken Promise: Obamacare Sees Jump in Emergency Room Usehttp://www.teaparty.org/broken-promise-obamacare-sees-jump-emergency-room-use-86677/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=broken-promise-obamacare-sees-jump-emergency-room-use
http://www.teaparty.org/broken-promise-obamacare-sees-jump-emergency-room-use-86677/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:46:02 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86677(Breitbart) – Statistics reveal that emergency room visits are up and not decreasing as the president promised before Obamacare became the law of the land. Ryan Allen, Emergency Medicine Service Line Director at Bakersfield Heart Hospital told23 ABC Bakersfield that not only are ER room visits increasing, but lines are long. “Unfortunately it can take hours to ...

]]>(Breitbart) – Statistics reveal that emergency room visits are up and not decreasing as the president promised before Obamacare became the law of the land.

Ryan Allen, Emergency Medicine Service Line Director at Bakersfield Heart Hospital told23 ABC Bakersfield that not only are ER room visits increasing, but lines are long. “Unfortunately it can take hours to be seen, because those patients who are possibly having a heart attack, they’re pushed in front.”

With increased numbers of insured Americans under Obamacare, more people are now using the emergency rooms. Obama touted that the additional policy holders would not need to resort to emergency rooms. However, according to Allen, given that most people work until 7 PM and doctor offices close early, people in need of medical assistance end up heading over to the nearby ER.

ABC reports that Bakersfield Memorial Hospital broke records and now serve 300 people daily in the ER. A Registered Nurse, Jenny Wilson, with Memorial Hospital explains that they have developed a fast track system that categorizes the patients based on illness and directs the less serious cases with sprains, cold or cough to get quick treatment and then releases them.

A Los Angeles Times article confirmed that according to state records, Los Angeles County’s 74 emergency rooms, 11 treated an additional 2,000 patients or more in the first six months of 2014 compared with the same time in 2013.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/broken-promise-obamacare-sees-jump-emergency-room-use-86677/feed/1110,000 Illegals on CA Roads with New Licenseshttp://www.teaparty.org/110000-illegals-ca-roads-new-licenses-86675/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=110000-illegals-ca-roads-new-licenses
http://www.teaparty.org/110000-illegals-ca-roads-new-licenses-86675/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:44:17 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86675(Breitbart) – The new California law AB 60, an attempt to license the roughly 1.5 million illegal aliens in the state, has already licensed 110,000 immigrants since going into effect in January. When a similar attempt was initially made in Nevada, the illegal residents failed the test 90% of the time. The ACLU attests that ...

]]>(Breitbart) – The new California law AB 60, an attempt to license the roughly 1.5 million illegal aliens in the state, has already licensed 110,000 immigrants since going into effect in January.

When a similar attempt was initially made in Nevada, the illegal residents failed the test 90% of the time. The ACLU attests that the failure rate can be due to the language barrier; Gloria Cruz of the San Diego ACLU told ABC 10 News that the need to apply online or with the DMV’s touchscreen had left immigrants with great difficulties to overcome. California applicants have faced similar difficulties with the written test.

Because AB 60 licenses have “Federal Limits Apply” on the upper right corner, some immigrants are apparently worried that TSA or ICE agents could find them and deport them. the San Diego ACLU confirms that if illegal immigrants apply to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the agency could share their information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

236,000 immigrants applied for the licenses in January. Applicants do not need a social security number or proof of legal presence to apply.

The ACLU of Northern California warns applicants:

Do not attempt to use your AB 60 license to enter restricted areas of federal facilities, pass through TSA screening, or verify your identity to federal law enforcement officers, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). When talking to or in front of law enforcement, anything you say can be used against you – don’t talk about your immigration status, citizenship, or when you came to the US, or where you’re from.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/110000-illegals-ca-roads-new-licenses-86675/feed/4Netanyahu’s Favorability Ratings Best Obama’shttp://www.teaparty.org/netanyahus-favorability-ratings-best-obamas-86673/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=netanyahus-favorability-ratings-best-obamas
http://www.teaparty.org/netanyahus-favorability-ratings-best-obamas-86673/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:38:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86673(Breitbart) – Despite months of relentless attacks coming from President Obama, his White House, and his sycophants in the mainstream media, here in America Benjamin Netanyahu has seen a boost in his favorability rating to where the Israeli Prime Minister is now in much better shape than our own President. According to the latest Gallup poll, 45% ...

]]>(Breitbart) – Despite months of relentless attacks coming from President Obama, his White House, and his sycophants in the mainstream media, here in America Benjamin Netanyahu has seen a boost in his favorability rating to where the Israeli Prime Minister is now in much better shape than our own President.

According to the latest Gallup poll, 45% of Americans view Netanyahu favorably while only 24% view him unfavorably. Since 2012, Netanyahu’s favorability rating has jumped a full 10 points, while his unfavorable rating has risen an insignificant 1%.

The latest favorability ratings for Obama come from a Feb 23 Economist/YouGov poll that shows Obama tied with Netanyahu in favorability with 45%, but with an unfavorable rating of more than double that of Netanyahu’s at 50%. This is a poll of 1000 adults. Gallup polled 837 adults.

As far as job approval, according to the most recent Gallup poll Obama sits at 44% approve, 51% disapprove.

Netanyahu’s jump in approval is a massive failure for a mainstream media that has red-lined in its attempts to derail Netanyahu’s much-anticipated Tuesday speech before both chambers of Congress.

The very same media that champions Obama’s lawless crusades around Congress is now comically furious over a breach of diplomatic protocol that saw House Speaker John Boehner invite Netanyahu to speak without first alerting a president — a president who his currently writing the laws he wants and violating his Constitutional oath by refusing to enforce those he doesn’t.

The media did everything in its power to promote a failed boycott of the speech by Democratic lawmakers (so far only about 10% have refused to attend) and to paint those who support Netanyahu’s speech as disloyal to President Obama, and by extension America.

The media has been on a McCarthyist rampage all year; brutally punishing anyone they perceive as disloyal to Obama. On top of these attacks against Netanyahu and his American supporters for defying The King, the media spent a full week blasting Rudy Giuliani for questioning Obama’s patriotism. Then the media spent 4 days blasting Republican Governor Scott Walker for not vouching for Obama’s faith and patriotism.

The media fails to understand that loyalty to country does not mean loyalty to the president or to the government.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/netanyahus-favorability-ratings-best-obamas-86673/feed/4Obama Hit for Filling Embassies with Political Hackshttp://www.teaparty.org/obama-hit-filling-embassies-political-hacks-86671/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-hit-filling-embassies-political-hacks
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-hit-filling-embassies-political-hacks-86671/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:36:22 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86671(Washington Examiner) – Career diplomats are finding that they can’t advance to top State Department posts such as ambassadorships because President Obama has stuffed political appointees into those jobs, the most ever in his second term. “Yes, it’s a problem,” said Robert Silverman, president of the American Foreign Service Association. “This is an ongoing struggle. We need ...

(Washington Examiner) – Career diplomats are finding that they can’t advance to top State Department posts such as ambassadorships because President Obama has stuffed political appointees into those jobs, the most ever in his second term.

“Yes, it’s a problem,” said Robert Silverman, president of the American Foreign Service Association. “This is an ongoing struggle. We need to maintain the ability for our top people to go straight to the top,” he said.

The issue is a big one: While the State Department has a good record for hiring a diverse workforce of diplomats and experts who often take hardship posts to move up the ladder, the Obama White House is keeping way too many of the best jobs for its political allies.

Just look at the numbers. Silverman’s group said that 40.6 percent of Obama’s second term ambassadorial positions, the top jobs, have gone to political hacks, with 59.4 to career foreign service careerists. Some Obama picks have been criticized for having no experience in or knowledge of the country they are being sent to.

Overall, 34.9 percent of Obama’s picks in six years have gone to political allies. That includes the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro.

That is the highest percentage in 27 years, since when former President Ronald Reagan’s “political” rate was 38 percent. Under George W. Bush, political appointees took just 29.8 percent of ambassadorships and under Bill Clinton it was even lower, at 28 percent.

“We’re not against political appointees in the system,” said Silverman at a Wilson Centerconference on the issue, “as long as there is career development for people coming into the system.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-hit-filling-embassies-political-hacks-86671/feed/0ISIS Turns on Twitterhttp://www.teaparty.org/isis-turns-twitter-86669/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=isis-turns-twitter
http://www.teaparty.org/isis-turns-twitter-86669/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:33:08 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86669Terror group supporters threaten social network, as well as co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically (The Guardian) – Isis supporters have threatened Twitter employees, including co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically, with death over the social network’s practice of blocking accounts associated with the group. In an Arabic post uploaded to the image-sharing site JustPaste.it, the group told Twitter that “your virtual ...

]]>Terror group supporters threaten social network, as well as co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically

(The Guardian) – Isis supporters have threatened Twitter employees, including co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically, with death over the social network’s practice of blocking accounts associated with the group.

In an Arabic post uploaded to the image-sharing site JustPaste.it, the group told Twitter that “your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you”. It warned that Jack Dorsey and Twitter employees have “become a target for the soldiers of the Caliphate and supporters scattered among your midst!”

“You started this failed war … We told you from the beginning it’s not your war, but you didn’t get it and kept closing our accounts on Twitter, but we always come back. But when our lions come and take your breath, you will never come back to life.”

Twitter’s terms of service explicitly ban “direct, specific threats of violence against others”, and the company has followed YouTube in proactively shutting down Isis-related Twitter accounts, with the aid of the UK’s counter-terrorism internet referral unit.

When the company has identified a user as being associated with Isis, it moves aggressively to keep them off the social network. As the Guardian reported previously, “one account run by Rayat al-Tawheed, who speaks on behalf of mainly UK-origin pro-Isis fighters, had a replacement account taken down by Twitter within just a few minutes of its relaunch” in September, after sending just three non-offensive tweets.

During a Lords’ committee hearing in July, Twitter’s Sinéad McSweeney said it had “in excess of 100 people” working 24/7 to examine reports to Twitter across a range of issues.

A Twitter spokesman told Buzzfeed that “our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials”.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/isis-turns-twitter-86669/feed/1IRS Defends Paying Refunds to Illegals — Who Never Filed Taxes!http://www.teaparty.org/irs-defends-paying-refunds-illegals-never-filed-taxes-86667/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=irs-defends-paying-refunds-illegals-never-filed-taxes
http://www.teaparty.org/irs-defends-paying-refunds-illegals-never-filed-taxes-86667/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:30:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86667(Washington Times) – The IRS is defending its decision to let illegal immigrants claim up to three years’ refunds on income even if they never paid income taxes, telling Congress in a new letter last week that agency lawyers have concluded getting a Social Security number triggers the ability to go back and ask for ...

(Washington Times) – The IRS is defending its decision to let illegal immigrants claim up to three years’ refunds on income even if they never paid income taxes, telling Congress in a new letter last week that agency lawyers have concluded getting a Social Security number triggers the ability to go back and ask for previous refunds.

President Obama’s new deportation amnesty could grant Social Security numbers to as many as 4 million illegal immigrants, making many of them eligible for tax refunds under the Earned Income Tax Credit even for years when they cheated on their taxes, working off the books and refusing to file tax returns.

“Section 32 of the Internal Revenue Code requires an SSN on the return, but a taxpayer claiming the EITC is not required to have an SSN before the close of the year for which the EITC is claimed,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen wrote in his letter to Sen. Charles E. Grassley on Wednesday.

The IRS’s chief lawyer had reached that conclusion in 2000, and the agency has newly confirmed it, Mr. Koskinen said.

Mr. Grassley said that made a mockery of the law, and said he’ll try to write a bill specifically prohibiting it.

“The tax code shouldn’t reward those who broke our immigration laws,” the Iowa Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement.

The tax issue has become one of several flash points over Mr. Obama’s deportation amnesty, which grants tentative legal status, Social Security numbers and work permits to illegal immigrants who qualify. The newly legalized workers would also likely be eligible for driver’s licenses, and could even be more attractive than native-born workers to some employers trying to figure out ways to save money under Obamacare mandates.

Mr. Koskinen has previously said that illegal immigrants must be able to prove they worked off-the-books in order to claim the EITC, and it’s unclear how many of the population Mr. Obama is aiming to cover would be able to offer such proof.

The three-year time frame is part of general tax law, allowing anyone who didn’t file to go back and claim a refund for up to three previous year’s worth of taxes.

But the IRS lawyer’s ruling creates an odd circumstance where illegal immigrants who cheated by not paying taxes before can see if they would benefit from refunds. If they do benefit, they could file, but if they don’t benefit they could continue to avoid taxes for those years.

Mr. Obama’s new amnesty program does not require payment of back-taxes.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/irs-defends-paying-refunds-illegals-never-filed-taxes-86667/feed/2‘No More!’: Bibi’s Defiant First Speechhttp://www.teaparty.org/bibis-defiant-first-speech-86664/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bibis-defiant-first-speech
http://www.teaparty.org/bibis-defiant-first-speech-86664/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:22:31 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86664(The Blaze) – A defiant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will continue to stand up for its right to exist against the growing threat posed by Iran, and defended his controversial Tuesday speech to Congress as a chance to warn America that this threat is growing. “For 2,000 years, my people, the ...

]]>(The Blaze) – A defiant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will continue to stand up for its right to exist against the growing threat posed by Iran, and defended his controversial Tuesday speech to Congress as a chance to warn America that this threat is growing.

“For 2,000 years, my people, the Jewish people, were stateless, defenseless, voiceless. We were utterly powerless against our enemies, who swore to destroy us,” Netanyahu said at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington.

“No more!” he said to applause. “The days when the Jewish people are passive in the face of threats to annihilate us — those days are over.”

Netanyahu said his Tuesday speech before a joint session of Congress is a chance to warn America that Iran needs to be checked even today, and that Iran would become an even larger problem with nuclear weapons.

“We must not let that happen,” he said of the possibility of Iran obtaining those weapons.

“I plan to speak about an Iranian regime that is threatening to destroy Israel, that’s devouring country and after country in the Middle East, that’s exporting terror throughout the world, and that is developing, as we speak, the capacity to make nuclear weapons, lots of them,” he said.

The Obama administration continues to try to negotiate an agreement with Iran to stop its nuclear program, and that effort has been criticized by many who say it’s doomed to fail, and will only give Iran more time to advance its research. Netanyahu didn’t talk specifically about those negotiations, but indicated Israel too is a critic, and said tactical disagreements between the U.S. and Israel are common.

He said he believes those differences are borne out of the differences between the United States, the world’s most powerful nation, and Israel, a powerful but much smaller country surrounded by enemies.

“American leaders worry about the security of their country, Israeli leaders worry about the survival of their country,” he said.

Still, Netanyahu this issue and others by saying the U.S. and Israel are capable of having “family” disputes without weakening the relationship.

“Israel and the United States will continue to stand together because America and Israel are more than friends, we’re like a family,” he said. “We’re practically mishpucha.”

“Disagreements in the family are always uncomfortable, but we must always remember that we are family,” he said.

Another one of those family disagreements has been the very fact that Netanyahu will deliver a speech on Congress on Tuesday. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Netanyahu to speak without any consultation with Democrats. In turn, many Democrats have said they won’t attend, and the White House has said the U.S. should not be seen as favoring any foreign leader so close to a national election.

The domestic U.S. fight over the speech has led some to criticize Netanyahu for fueling a partisan battle that could hurt Israel’s interests. But Netanyahu dismissed this idea and said his appearance should not be seen as one that creates a partisan divide.

“The last thing that anyone who cares about Israel, the last thing that I would want, is for Israel to become a partisan issue, and I regret that some people have misperceived my visit here this week as doing that,” he said. “Israel has always been a bipartisan issue, Israel should always remain a bipartisan issue.”

He also praised the aid that President Barack Obama has delivered to Israel.

“I deeply appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel,” he said. “Security cooperation, intelligence sharing, support at the U.N., and much more, some things that I, as Prime Minister of Israel, cannot even divulge to you because it remains in the realm of things that are kept between an American president and an Israeli Prime Minister.”

“I am deeply grateful for this support, and so should you be,” he said.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/bibis-defiant-first-speech-86664/feed/2Terrorist Flag Makes Appearance Outside Major Pro-Israel Conference in D.C.http://www.teaparty.org/terrorist-flag-makes-appearance-outside-major-pro-israel-conference-d-c-86661/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=terrorist-flag-makes-appearance-outside-major-pro-israel-conference-d-c
http://www.teaparty.org/terrorist-flag-makes-appearance-outside-major-pro-israel-conference-d-c-86661/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:19:47 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86661(The Blaze) – Among the pro-Palestinian activists outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington Sunday was one demonstrator holding the yellow flag of the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah. A reporter for the conservative website Legal Insurrection captured video of the protest and the flag associated with the Iran-supported group behind terrorist attacks ...

]]>(The Blaze) – Among the pro-Palestinian activists outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington Sunday was one demonstrator holding the yellow flag of the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah.

A reporter for the conservative website Legal Insurrection captured video of the protest and the flag associated with the Iran-supported group behind terrorist attacks that have killed not only scores of Israelis but Americans and others as well. The State Department classifies Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization.

Protesters didn’t hide their vision for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, chanting: “Judaism yes, Zionism no, the state of Israel has got to go!”

“I also saw harassment of men, women and children who had done nothing to deserve it except make the mistake of revealing their conference badge before they reached the door,” Legal Insurrection reporter Amy Miller also observed. “Those who were obviously religious Jews (based on their head coverings, clothing, and facial hair) got it worse.”

TheBlaze reported Sunday that the anti-Israel activist group Code Pink helped led the demonstrations outside the Washington Convention Center where other chants included “Free, free Palestine!”

Hezbollah flags also made an appearance outside the AIPAC conference last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the AIPAC conference Monday morning, a day before he will address a joint session of Congress to make his case that the emerging deal over Iran’s controversial nuclear program poses an existential danger to Israel.

Here’s the video of the protest, including the demonstrator holding the Hezbollah flag:

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/terrorist-flag-makes-appearance-outside-major-pro-israel-conference-d-c-86661/feed/0Is Obama Keeping Key Info From Congress?http://www.teaparty.org/obama-keeping-key-info-congress-86659/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obama-keeping-key-info-congress
http://www.teaparty.org/obama-keeping-key-info-congress-86659/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:14:48 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86659(The Blaze) – A senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel knows more than Congress does about the elements in the emerging U.S-negotiated deal over Iran’s nuclear program. “We know many details from the agreement being put together, details that we feel members of Congress are unaware of,” the official told reporters aboard Netanyahu’s ...

]]>(The Blaze) – A senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel knows more than Congress does about the elements in the emerging U.S-negotiated deal over Iran’s nuclear program.

“We know many details from the agreement being put together, details that we feel members of Congress are unaware of,” the official told reporters aboard Netanyahu’s plane en route to Washington Sunday, according to multiple Israeli media outlets.

“According to the information we have, the deal currently taking shape will leave Iran with the capability to build a nuclear weapon, if [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei make a decision to do so,” said the official, who was not named.

While in Washington, Netanyahu will speak to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference on Monday before his address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday. Before leaving Israel, he described his trip as “fateful” and “historic.”

Ynet reported that the Israeli official said Netanyahu would disclose some of the elements of the emerging agreement with Iran in his address to Congress.

The Obama administration has fiercely opposed Netanyahu’s address to Congress, calling the invitation from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) a break in diplomatic protocol. Netanyahu has repeatedly warned about the danger should Iran obtain a nuclear weapon. Iran has vowed to annihilate the Jewish state.

“We are not here to offend President Obama, whom we respect very much,” the Israeli official said, according to the Times of Israel. “The prime minister is here to warn, in front of any stage possible, the dangers” of the deal currently being discussed.

Haaretz reported that the official said Israel would lend its support to a “good deal” that would thwart Iran’s nuclear weapons’ ambitions, but for now, Netanyahu needs to warn Congress about the “far-flung concessions” currently underway.

“Congress in the last barrier before a bad deal,” the official said.

The Associated Press reported last week that the Obama administration, along with Western allies, are willing to compromise on the number of centrifuges Iran would be allowed to keep as well as on uranium enrichment. The agreement being discussed would allow for Tehran’s nuclear activities to be monitored for some 10 years, but then would gradually ease restrictions on uranium enrichment which could allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, according to the AP.

The White House later said reports that the nuclear freeze would last only 10 years were not true.

A reporter for the right-leaning NRG news site offered a glimpse at the opinion of the reporters traveling with the prime minister’s entourage.

“The atmosphere among the reporters accompanying the prime minister is that the speech is unnecessary,” NRG observed.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/obama-keeping-key-info-congress-86659/feed/22 White House Break-In Tries in 24 Hourshttp://www.teaparty.org/2-white-house-break-tries-24-hours-86657/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2-white-house-break-tries-24-hours
http://www.teaparty.org/2-white-house-break-tries-24-hours-86657/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 17:09:35 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86657Men arrested in separate attempts to access grounds (Washington Post) – Two men were arrested Sunday night and early Monday in separate attempts to gain access to the White House grounds, according to the U.S. Secret Service. The first incident occurred about 11:30 p.m. along East Executive Avenue NW, near the Sherman monument. Brian Leary, ...

(Washington Post) – Two men were arrested Sunday night and early Monday in separate attempts to gain access to the White House grounds, according to the U.S. Secret Service.

The first incident occurred about 11:30 p.m. along East Executive Avenue NW, near the Sherman monument. Brian Leary, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, said a man climbed over a bicycle rack and was arrested. He was taken to the D.C. police department’s Second District station and charged with unlawful entry.

Leary said that about 6:45 a.m. Monday, another man tried to walk into a door leading to a construction site at Pennsylvania Avenue and East Executive Avenue. Leary said a worker was leaving and the man tried to get through the door before it closed.

An officer with the uniformed division confronted the man, Leary said, along with an agent, and he was arrested after a brief scuffle. Charges were pending against that man Monday morning.

Leary said he did not know of a motive in either case.

Security measures outside the White House have been tightened after a man climbed a fence in September, got past officers and got deep into the White house before being stopped. That led to a shake-up in the top ranks of the agency.

(LA Times) – Authorities said Sunday night that Los Angeles police fatally shot a man on skid row during a struggle over an officer’s weapons.

Police officials offered a detailed account of what they say prompted the Sunday morning shooting, which was captured on video by a bystander.

Cmdr. Andrew Smith said officers assigned to the LAPD’s Central Division and Safer Cities Initiative — a task force focused on skid row — responded to the location about noon Sunday after receiving a 911 call reporting a possible robbery.

Smith said the officers approached the man and made contact with him, at which point he “began fighting and physically resisting the officers.” The officers attempted to take him into custody and at one point, attempted to use a Taser that Smith said was “ineffective.”

The man continued to resist police, Smith said, and the man and some of the officers fell to the ground.

“At some point in there, a struggle over one of the officer’s weapons occurred,” Smith said. “At that point an officer-involved shooting happened.”

Two officers and a sergeant fired at the man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, Smith said. It was unclear how many times the officers fired, although at least five shots can be heard on the video recording that captured the shooting.

No other gun was recovered at the scene, Smith said. It was unclear if the man had any other weapons among his possessions — investigators were still combing the scene late Sunday night.

The man has been tentatively identified, but Smith said it was unclear if he was homeless.

Two officers were treated and released for injuries sustained in the struggle, Smith said. The extent of those injuries was unclear.

The woman seen in the video recording picking up an officer’s baton was detained and is expected to be arrested, Smith said. She had not been booked as of 9 p.m. Sunday, and it was unclear what charges she would face, but Smith said the arrest would stem from her picking up the baton.

Smith said that, based on the video recording, it was unclear what the officers told the man before they fired. He said investigators would use audio enhancement software to determine what exactly was said and when.

“Of course we’re aware of the video,” he said. “Any video that shows someone losing their life in an altercation with police is going to be disturbing. It’s disturbing for police officers to watch.

“It’s always tragic when there’s a loss of life in one of these situations,” Smith continued. “It’s not an incident taken lightly by any police officer. But we are committed to everyone involved and to the public to conduct a thorough and complete investigation.”

Smith said investigators were looking for any other video that captured the incident, including footage from the body cameras some of the officers may have been wearing. Officers assigned to the Safer Cities Initiative were part of the LAPD’s pilot program for the new technology and are equipped with the devices.

At least one officer involved in the incident was wearing a body camera, Smith said.

The dramatic confrontation was caught on video, which was later posted on Facebook (the video contains foul language). It shows a group of officers getting into a scuffle with a man standing on a sidewalk littered with tents and other debris.

During the struggle, one officer drops his nightstick, which is picked up by a woman on the street. Two officers handcuff the woman.

The man continues to scuffle with four of the officers, even after he’s wrestled to the ground. What appears to be one of the officers is heard saying “Drop the gun. Drop the gun.”

Then, at least one of the officers opens fire on the man, who remained on the ground with at least two officers near him.

Five gunshots are heard on the recording.

Police have not identified the dead man or said how many officers were involved, or how many shots were fired. The man was declared dead at a hospital shortly after the shooting, which occurred about noon, according to police spokesman Sgt. Barry Montgomery.

Talk of funding and improved services to help get homeless people and veterans off the streets didn’t clear the tents and shelters along downtown L.A.’s skid row during the recent count of the county’s homeless population.

He said that at one point during the struggle a Taser had been deployed, but investigators did not know if it was used on the man who was subsequently shot.

Witnesses at the scene identified the victim by his street name, “Africa”, and gave conflicting accounts of what they saw.

Dennis Horne, 29, said Africa had been fighting with someone else in his tent when police arrived.

When Africa refused to comply with a police order to come out of the tent, officers used the Taser on him and dragged him out, Horne said. The officers tackled Africa to the ground, where he continued to fight, which led to the fatal shooting, according to Horne.

Another witness, Lonnie Franklin, 53, said five to six officers pulled up in three to four cars as Africa was lying face down on the sidewalk. The officers approached with guns drawn yelling, ”Down, down,” according to Franklin.

When Africa got up and started fighting, the officers “went straight to lethal force,” Franklin said.

But Jose Gil, 38 , said he saw the man swinging at the police and then heard one of the officers say, “Gun, gun, he’s got my gun!” before police fired multiple shots.

Another witness, who asked not to be identified, said the man punched and kicked the officers and reached for one of their service weapons before the officers fired at least seven times.

An area resident, who identified himself as Booker T. Washington, said police had come by repeatedly to ask Africa to take down his tent. People are allowed to sleep on the streets from 9 p.m to 6 a.m., but they are supposed to remove their tents in the daytime under a court agreement.

“This man got shot over a tent,” Washington said.

Ina Murphy, who lives in an apartment nearby, said Africa had arrived in the area about four or five months ago. He told her he had recently been released after spending 10 years in a mental facility, Murphy said.

Police Commission President Steve Soboroff first saw the video of the shooting via social media. He was watching it again when reached by a Times reporter Sunday evening, trying to hear what exactly the officers had said to the man.

“My heart just started pounding just watching it,” Soboroff said. “I feel the adrenaline. These situations are just so horrific.”

Soboroff said a key issue would be whether the man did in fact try to grab the officer’s gun, as some witnesses have told reporters. Otherwise, he said, it’s unclear what might have prompted the use of deadly force.

“To me, that would be the only explanation that something would happen that quickly,” Soboroff said. “It escalated. It escalated right in front of our eyes.”

He stressed that the LAPD, the independent inspector general and the district attorney’s office would all investigate the shooting “very, very carefully.”

“Of course I would encourage people not to rush to judgment. It’s not fair to anybody. It’s not fair to the family of the victim or the victim or the officers,” he said. “We’ll find out what happened.”

Montgomery said Sunday evening that investigators were in the process of interviewing “loads of people” who were in the area at the time of the shooting. He said there would potentially be more video recordings of the incident, noting that he could see two surveillance cameras mounted on buildings at the scene.

It was still unclear how many officers fired their weapons or what was said to the man before he was shot, Montgomery said.

Montgomery said the video of the events leading up to the shooting appears to back the initial report that a Taser was used. He said the “click-click-click” sound that accompanies the use of the device can be heard on the recording.

According to a Times data analysis, there have been 12 fatal officer-involved shootings in downtown Los Angeles since 2000. There were none in 2014 and one in 2015 before Sunday’s violence.

Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson and other activists on Sunday called for a special police commission meeting on the shooting.

About 9:30 p.m., dozens of people gathered at Pershing Square to protest the police shooting.

“The heavens are crying right now,” said General Jeff Page, known around skid row as the “mayor” of the poverty-stricken neighborhood, as rains poured on the crowd gathered around him. He went over the events of the day that led to the fatal shooting of Africa, whom Page called “one of our loved ones.”

In the crowd was Yannick Babou, 34, a street vendor who works in skid row. Babou said he came out to show his frustration and anger with law enforcement.

“I’m not anti-police. I think we need police in society,” Babou said. “But I think we need to hold police accountable when they do something wrong.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/lapd-fire-killing-unarmed-homeless-man-86653/feed/0Kerry Warns Netanyahu Against Revealing Details Of Iran Nuclear Dealhttp://www.teaparty.org/kerry-warns-netanyahu-revealing-details-iran-nuclear-deal-86647/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kerry-warns-netanyahu-revealing-details-iran-nuclear-deal
http://www.teaparty.org/kerry-warns-netanyahu-revealing-details-iran-nuclear-deal-86647/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:43:29 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86647(Yahoo/AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday warned Israel’s prime minister against revealing details at his upcoming speech to US Congress of an Iran nuclear deal that world powers are in the process of negotiating. While he did not mention Benjamin Netanyahu by name, Kerry told reporters in Geneva he was “concerned by ...

]]>(Yahoo/AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday warned Israel’s prime minister against revealing details at his upcoming speech to US Congress of an Iran nuclear deal that world powers are in the process of negotiating.

While he did not mention Benjamin Netanyahu by name, Kerry told reporters in Geneva he was “concerned by reports” that “selective details” of the deal aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear programme would be revealed in the coming days.

His comments come after an Israeli official said the Jewish state knew about the emerging agreement and that the prime minister would elaborate in his congressional address.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/kerry-warns-netanyahu-revealing-details-iran-nuclear-deal-86647/feed/1Detroit Public School To SUSPEND KIDS If Parents Miss Common Core Test Meetinghttp://www.teaparty.org/detroit-public-school-suspend-kids-parents-miss-common-core-test-meeting-86645/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=detroit-public-school-suspend-kids-parents-miss-common-core-test-meeting
http://www.teaparty.org/detroit-public-school-suspend-kids-parents-miss-common-core-test-meeting-86645/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:39:16 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86645(Yahoo/Daily Caller) - Teachers at Coleman A. Young Elementary in Detroit, Mich. sent a letter home with children last week threatening the little kids with suspension if their parents do not show up to a parent-teacher meeting. In the letter, the taxpayer-paid teachers described the meeting as compulsory for parents, reports local NBC affiliate WDIV-TV. The ...

]]>(Yahoo/Daily Caller) - Teachers at Coleman A. Young Elementary in Detroit, Mich. sent a letter home with children last week threatening the little kids with suspension if their parents do not show up to a parent-teacher meeting.

In the letter, the taxpayer-paid teachers described the meeting as compulsory for parents, reports local NBC affiliate WDIV-TV.

The letter thanked two dozen parents who showed up for a meeting on Thursday. It also scolded parents who did not appear at the meeting and offered the opportunity to attend a make-up date.

Then, the teachers’ letter threatened to suspend grade-school-aged children unless their parents go to the make-up meeting.

Some parents aren’t happy.

“I was like, ‘Wow, is this a joke?’ I really couldn’t believe what I was reading,” Derrick Smoak, the father of a third-grade boy, told WDIV.

“I don’t like being threatened in no letter, especially when it comes to my child’s education,” Latrica Smoak added.

Not all parents can make the time to attend a meeting at a time set by teachers, the Smoaks observed.

“The way jobs is going these days, you’re not even allowed to take off an hour or two and go up to the school just for a parent meeting,” the mad mother told the NBC affiliate.

“Let’s find a date when it can actually work for the parents for the both of them, so they both can be there,” Derrick Smoak suggested.

Officials with the Detroit Public Schools laid all the blame for the letter on teachers at Coleman A. Young Elementary. At the same time, school district officials did not criticize the letter. Instead, they emphasized that attendance at a parent-teacher meeting is critical because a big Common Core-related standardized test is on the horizon.

“Neither the meeting nor the comments regarding ‘student suspension’ were made out of ill intent, but rather to express the level of importance of students’ progress,” school officials explained, “as they prepare for the upcoming M-STEP test.”

Students in public schools across Michigan must take the M-STEP test, a comprehensive test of English and math skills for students from 3-8, for the first time this spring.

Coleman A. Young Elementary is named in honor of Coleman Young, mayor of Detroit from 1974 to 1994. He was Detroit’s first black mayor.

Young’s tumultuous tenure, 20-year tenure as mayor was marked by corruption, a steady increase in crime, a severe economic decline and an unremitting population collapse.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/detroit-public-school-suspend-kids-parents-miss-common-core-test-meeting-86645/feed/3Administration Tosses Own Cybersecurity Plan Into The Mixhttp://www.teaparty.org/administration-tosses-cybersecurity-plan-mix-86643/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=administration-tosses-cybersecurity-plan-mix
http://www.teaparty.org/administration-tosses-cybersecurity-plan-mix-86643/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:33:38 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86643(Washington Examiner) - The Obama administration has always been partial to its own proposals on cybersecurity. President Obama has tossed a cybersecurity information-sharing proposal into the mix on Capitol Hill, but it remains to be seen whether the White House approach will gain any legislative traction. Likewise, lawmakers are working on their own bills but those ...

During Obama’s first term, a White House-led, interagency task force spent two years developing a broad legislative plan on cybersecurity, only to see the measure utterly ignored on Capitol Hill.

In turn, the White House played nice in 2011 and 2012 as Sens. Joseph Lieberman, since retired, and Susan Collins pushed a cybersecurity bill that would have mandated new requirements for U.S. industry.

The administration’s support for that measure was lukewarm at best, and when the bill went up in flames on the Senate floor in late 2012, there were few tears at the White House.

“The administration took something of a hands-off approach,” said a former cybersecurity official in the Obama administration. “They didn’t want to spend a lot of political chips on something that looked like it might be unsuccessful and was going to be unpopular with the private sector.”

Amid the ashes of Lieberman-Collins, the administration was ready to leap in with an executive order and presidential policy directive that would include many elements of its own, shunned legislative proposal.

The executive order and policy directive were released in February 2013 and have largely guided the federal government’s cybersecurity strategy ever since.

Those documents stressed collaboration with the private sector, industry-driven standards and better organization of the federal government to confront cybersecurity challenges.

There was one missing piece, which players on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue recognized: A new law was needed to promote cyberthreat information sharing between government and the private sector.

In a bit of “After you, my dear Alphonse,” the White House urged lawmakers to take the first step on information-sharing legislation, encouraged them along and took every opportunity to publicly note how important this was to filling gaps in national cybersecurity.

Still, the administration never produced its own bill and opposed, to varying degrees, everything that emerged from Congress on the issue.

A bill championed by retired House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., that passed the House — twice — with a sizable bloc of Democratic votes didn’t pass the White House test for ensuring the protection of privacy and civil liberties.

The appearance of the Edward Snowden leaks, beginning in June 2013, spelled doom for the bill by Rogers and Democrat Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland.

After more than a year of backstage negotiations, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and now-retired Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., produced a bill in the summer of 2014 that they thought would meet the demands of the White House and online privacy advocates.

It didn’t.

The measure passed the Senate Intelligence Committee on a 12-3 vote, but the administration never signed on despite months of on-again, off-again negotiations.

Then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had no interest in bringing it up during last year’s lame-duck session without some sign of support from the president, so the measure quietly died.

Now, the issue is back, the Obama administration appears fully engaged and the lines of demarcation are starting to reveal themselves on Capitol Hill.

The president has a proposal — actually introduced this time, by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. — that includes targeted liability protection for industry.

New Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Feinstein, now the committee’s ranking member after previously serving as chairman, are expected to introduce a bill this week. That measure would expand the liability protection for industry beyond the administration’s approach.

The new House Intelligence chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., is close to producing a bill and will hold a hearing on March 5. The House and Senate Intelligence leaders have been working together closely on the legislation, according to sources.

McCaul may, in fact, be the key spoke in the cybersecurity wheel this year.

He held a hearing on the Obama proposal last week — so far the only hearing devoted to considering that measure. And McCaul clearly has developed a rapport on cybersecurity with leaders of the Department of Homeland Security and other administration security officials.

While intelligence committee leaders were desperately pushing for action on their info-sharing bills last year, Homeland Security Under Secretary Suzanne Spaulding and other senior administration officials were favorably pointing to smaller-scale cybersecurity bills produced by McCaul’s committee .

Now, rather than dismissing the Obama plan for alleged shortfalls on liability protection, as other Republicans and some industry leaders have done, McCaul is stressing common ground and downplaying differences.

McCaul likes the way the Obama plan positions Homeland Security as the main “portal” for sharing threat information with the private sector, and suggests the administration may go along with enhanced liability protections.

The outcome is far from certain, but the pieces are now in place for a robust debate over cybersecurity and information sharing.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/administration-tosses-cybersecurity-plan-mix-86643/feed/0GOP Targets Explosion In Food Stampshttp://www.teaparty.org/gop-targets-explosion-food-stamps-86638/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gop-targets-explosion-food-stamps
http://www.teaparty.org/gop-targets-explosion-food-stamps-86638/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:30:23 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86638(Washington Examiner) - Food stamps were created to cure rural hunger, but they have become the biggest federal program propping up the incomes of the working poor, a transition that has prompted Republicans to investigate the program. “It’s the largest welfare program we’ve got,” House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway told the Washington Examiner last week, ...

]]>(Washington Examiner) - Food stamps were created to cure rural hunger, but they have become the biggest federal program propping up the incomes of the working poor, a transition that has prompted Republicans to investigate the program.

“It’s the largest welfare program we’ve got,” House Agriculture Committee Chairman Mike Conaway told the Washington Examiner last week, before kicking off a series of hearings into the food stamp program. “It needs to work, and work well,” Conaway said.

His committee has jurisdiction over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the formal name for the food stamp program, because it is administered through the Department of Agriculture.

That is a reflection of the patchwork nature of the U.S. welfare system, which runs benefits through a number of departments as well as the tax code.

Conaway said last week’s hearing marked the beginning of a “top-to-bottom review of the program,” necessitated because “while the economy has changed and other welfare programs have adjusted to meet changing needs, it does not appear that SNAP has.”

More than five years after the official end of the recession, the U.S. has 46.4 million SNAP beneficiaries, about 50 percent more than during the worst of the financial crisis.

It’s a massive program, with the federal government spending $70 billion on benefits in fiscal 2014, or more than it shelled out through the Department of Education. The average person approved for SNAP receives $130 per month in benefits to spend on food, with many families receiving a multiple of that amount.

The rolls have not shrunk appreciably since the economy began recovering. Although the unemployment rate has tumbled from 10 percent in 2009 to 5.7 percent in January, the food stamp rolls expanded through 2013 and only began ticking down from 47.6 million in 2013 to 46.4 million in the latest data.

That disconnect is partly because the unemployment rate understates the true damage caused by the financial crisis.

In the years following the end of the recession, jobs were so scarce that millions of Americans became discouraged and stopped looking for work, and so they fell out of the official calculation of the unemployment rate. Furthermore, millions settled for part-time work when they would have preferred full-time jobs.

Also, many unemployed people turned to food stamps after they used up all their unemployment insurance benefits, Bob Greenstein of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities testified at Conaway’s hearing. In most states, unemployment benefits were available for up to 99 weeks during the fallout from the crisis.

Greenstein noted that the Congressional Budget Office, the in-house budget-estimating agency for Congress, correctly projected the increase in SNAP use earlier in the recession, and now projects that the number of people on the rolls will shrink 33 percent over the next 10 years back to more regular levels.

Nevertheless, there is concern that the program has been expanded beyond the role originally envisioned for it, including by changes made by President Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill.

“SNAP’s basic shape, however, is anchored in the past — even as the needs of recipients and the U.S. economy have changed,” University of Maryland poverty expert Douglas Besharov testified. He added that “the public continues to view it as an anti-hunger program when, for many recipients, it is really an income-supplementation program.”

In the early days of the food stamp program, when President John F. Kennedy created it by executive order, severe malnutrition was prevalent in rural parts of America, including Appalachia and parts of the South where black families were blocked from receiving welfare assistance.

Food stamps were partly a way to circumvent that racism to prevent people from facing starvation or illness. Today, malnutrition caused by poverty is almost nonexistent in the U.S.

Besharov suggested that food stamps should be considered as part of the broader U.S. safety net and that the entire welfare system administered by different parts of the executive branch should be “rationalized” to make it more efficient and supportive of work.

House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan has focused on similar reform ideas over the past year. He has highlighted the lack of overarching design in the dozens of programs that provide support to low-income families through healthcare, housing, food stamps and a number of tax credits. Ryan also has sought to stress outcomes, rather than spending, in judging programs.

Conaway said he would talk to Ryan in the future if it makes sense for SNAP”to be folded in with broader initiatives, but we don’t have any reforms to propose right now.” He stressed that they were just at the beginning of assessing SNAP.

But Conaway did say that the ideal outcome would be zero people receiving food stamps.

“There’s a certain dignity in taking care of your own family, and we have 46 million Americans who are needing help from the taxpayers and they’re not standing on their own two feet taking care of themselves,” he said. “So we’d prefer — they’d prefer, I think, taking care of themselves.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/gop-targets-explosion-food-stamps-86638/feed/4King V. Burwell Is Much Bigger Than Obamacarehttp://www.teaparty.org/king-v-burwell-much-bigger-obamacare-86636/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=king-v-burwell-much-bigger-obamacare
http://www.teaparty.org/king-v-burwell-much-bigger-obamacare-86636/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:13:59 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86636The Supreme Court is about to decide whether we are a nation of laws or men. (The American Spectator) - John Adams, in a 1775 essay referencing the Roman historian Livy and other sources, wrote that a republic was “a nation of laws, not of men.” As recently as fifty years ago, most Americans would have intuitively ...

]]>The Supreme Court is about to decide whether we are a nation of laws or men.

(The American Spectator) - John Adams, in a 1775 essay referencing the Roman historian Livy and other sources, wrote that a republic was “a nation of laws, not of men.” As recently as fifty years ago, most Americans would have intuitively understood his point and why it was relevant to their lives. Today, it isn’t clear that the President of the United States, the leaders of the Democratic Party, or the members of our “news” media would grasp the meaning of Adams’ words, much less that they still matter today. We will soon discover if the same can be said of the Supreme Court.

The Court will hear oral arguments this Wednesday in King v. Burwell. The petitioners in this case want the justices to rule that the Obama administration must abide by the provisions of PPACA that govern insurance subsidies. The text of that law, better known as Obamacare, requires that all subsidies must flow through exchanges established by the states. But due to the refusal of 36 states to set up such “marketplaces,” the Obama administration cobbled together federal exchanges in those states through which it is now issuing illegal subsidies.

In other words, the President conducts himself in a manner utterly inconsistent with republican principles and his constitutional oath. Obama obviously believes the law is what he says it is, a delusion evidently shared by his party and the press. He behaves as if he possesses the power to unilaterally change laws and create new ones merely because the opposition party actually opposes his agenda. Adams characterized such behavior as that of “a despot, bound by no law or limitation but his own will; it is a stretch of tyranny beyond absolute monarchy.”

This is, at its core, what King v. Burwell is about. It has nothing do with any “plot to kill health care,” as the New York Times recently put it. Nor does it involve a surreptitious conspiracy to reinvigorate the “states’ rights” movement, as it was described last week inPolitico. It isn’t even an attack on Obamacare, though a ruling in favor of David M. King and his fellow plaintiffs would obviously have a profound effect on the future of the “reform” law. It is rather an attempt to prevent the President from doing further violence to the Constitution.

Specifically, it is about the separation of powers doctrine. The Constitution grants the power to tax and spend to Congress alone. Yet the executive branch, under the Obama administration, has brazenly arrogated the power to spend with its IRS rule authorizing the distribution of subsidies through federal exchanges. The original cert petition filed with the Court on behalf of the plaintiffs phrases it as follows: “If the ACA means what it says… the IRS is illegally spending billions of taxpayer dollars every month without congressional authority.”

Moreover, the illegal decision to distribute subsidies via federal exchanges implicitly usurps Congress’s taxing power as well. These subsidies activate the employer mandate and the financial penalties associated with noncompliance. As legal scholars Michael Cannon and Jonathan Adler testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform shortly after the IRS rule was promulgated, “It thus triggers a $2,000-per-employee tax on employers and appropriates billions of dollars to private health insurance companies in states with a federal Exchange.”

If the Court permits this usurpation of such crucial congressional prerogatives, the result would be a quantum leap forward in presidential power. This is precisely what the separation of powers was devised to prevent. Yet, as perilous as it would be to permit the executive branch to accumulate more power than it has already acquired since 2009, that is what SCOTUS is being pressured to do. Since the Court agreed to hear King, there has been a concerted campaign by left-leaning legal scholars, politicians, and pundits to push its deliberations in that direction.

Much of this pressure on the Court has been focused on Chief Justice John Roberts, which is to be expected considering his craven ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius. Brianne J. Gorod, of the Constitutional Accountability Center, provides this all-too-typical example in the Los Angeles Times, “When the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in King vs. Burwell next week, all eyes will be on Chief Justice John G. Roberts.… There’s one very good reason to think the chief justice will rule for the government again: He’s too good a lawyer to do otherwise.”

Gorod’s point is as subtle as a drone strike. She might just as well have written, “Nice reputation you got there, Johnny. Hate to see anything happen to it.” And, if you doubt that Roberts can be swayed by such tactics, remember that a very similar intimidation campaign preceded his bizarre 2012 ruling on the individual mandate. William Jacobson of Cornell Law School puts it thus: “This pressure reportedly caused Roberts to change his vote, and to join with the four liberal members of the Court in finding the mandate justified under Congress’ taxing power.”

If Roberts is once again cowed, and allows the IRS to rewrite an act of Congress to suit the Obama administration’s political agenda, our President will regard it as a sign that he has safely crossed the constitutional Rubicon. It’s no coincidence that John Adams included Livy among those who influenced his view that a republic was “a nation of laws, not of men.” Livy personally witnessed the events that converted Rome from the former to the latter. If the Court caves again, we will have witnessed the same fundamental transformation of our country.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/king-v-burwell-much-bigger-obamacare-86636/feed/0Leaked Texas DPS Report Confirms Crime-Related Dangers Of Swiss-Cheese Borderhttp://www.teaparty.org/leaked-texas-dps-report-confirms-crime-related-dangers-swiss-cheese-border-86634/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=leaked-texas-dps-report-confirms-crime-related-dangers-swiss-cheese-border
http://www.teaparty.org/leaked-texas-dps-report-confirms-crime-related-dangers-swiss-cheese-border-86634/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:08:44 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86634(Breitbart) - A DPS report leaked February 24th warns that “Deported criminal aliens too often exploit the porous border and return to Texas to commit additional crimes.” Spencer Golvach is a victim of one of those crimes. He was sitting at a stoplight when an illegal alien who had been deported four times between 2003 and ...

]]>(Breitbart) - A DPS report leaked February 24th warns that “Deported criminal aliens too often exploit the porous border and return to Texas to commit additional crimes.” Spencer Golvach is a victim of one of those crimes. He was sitting at a stoplight when an illegal alien who had been deported four times between 2003 and 2010 randomly shot him. The calloused criminal then drove several miles and randomly shot Juan Garcia. He shot at another couple some miles up the road and was killed by a deputy who heard the gun shots.

Breitbart Texas interviewed Dan Golvach, Spencer’s father. During the video interview the grieving father said “my son is dead because the concept of borders is dead.” Mr. Golvach wants politicians and the public to know that the murderer had a history of violent crime, was deported, but “A Victor Reyes, an illegal alien, pulls up next to him, pulls his gun out, rolled his window down and blew my son’s brains out.”

Mr. Golvach believes stiffer jail time could be a solution to defer reentry. He said “I think that if you are a felon, and you have committed crimes in this country, and you have been deported, well there has to be some sort of deterrent that when you are sitting on the other side of that border that you think about.”

Victor Rodriguez Reyes was born in Reynosa, Mexico. He was convicted of burglary of a building in Hidalgo County in 2002. He pleaded guilty and served three years of probation, did 120 hours of community service, and was assessed a fine. In 2003, Reyes broke a beer bottle on a man’s head and was charged with aggravated assault, a state felony. A motion to revoke his probation was granted and he was deported. In 2004, he illegally crossed the border twice and was deported again. In 2006, he was convicted of aggravated assault with serious bodily injury related to special maritime circumstances. He served 63 months in federal prison and in 2010 was deported again.

The factual circumstances by which Reyes happened to be in Texas in 2015 to murder Spencer Golvach is unknown. What we do know is that he obviously got through the border.

It has been difficult to determine the background of Victor Reyes because there are approximately 10,000 U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement records for a “Victor Reyes” from Mexico. This search does not include “Victor Reyes” from Central America and other countries. Reyes has also used “Victor Reyes Rodriguez” as an alias.

Mr. Golvach wants the public to know that the man who killed his son and was deported, was a criminal who had been convicted of crimes of violence. Spencer’s murderer was initially reported by law enforcement and the media to be a “Victor Manuel Reyes” who had been found guilty of drug crimes.

There is ample and compelling evidence that the Texas-Mexico border is not secure, and this lack of security undermines public safety and homeland security in every region of the state. Crime has become increasingly transitory, transnational, organized, and discreet, and terrorism has become more disaggregated. An unsecure border with Mexico is the state’s most significant vulnerability as it provides criminals and would-be terrorists from around the world a reliable means to enter Texas and the nation undetected. This is especially concerning today, in light of the recent attacks and schemes around the world.

The DPS report was submitted to the 84th Texas Legislature and the Office of the Governor in response to a June 2014 directive by the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. DPS was asked to address Operation Strong Safety.

The Washington Post reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety said the report “was not meant for public distribution.” Department press secretary Tom Vinger was reported to have emailed the Post and said “that report was inappropriately obtained and [the Chronicle was] not authorized to possess or post the law enforcement sensitive document.” Breitbart Texas independently verified this statement with the DPS press secretary.

The DPS Report stated “A percentage of the illegal aliens (IA) smuggled into Texas are committing crimes throughout the state, including homicide, robbery, burglary, kidnapping, and sex trafficking. Deported criminal aliens too often exploit the porous border and return to Texas to commit additional crimes.”

It also recounted crimes committed by individuals who had been deported numerous times. Two illegal immigrants who had been deported multiple times, were recently charged in the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Willacy County, Texas. Only Cameron County separates Willacy County from the Texas-Mexico border.

The dangers of a porous border do not affect just those on the border. An IA who was deported multiple times has been charged with the sexual assault of a 9-year-old Parker County girl in North Texas. As late as January 2015, an illegal alien sex offender was arrested in Austin. He had been deported in 2012 after a conviction for indecency with a child. In 2013, he reentered the U.S. by swimming the Rio Grande River near Laredo.

Victor Reyes Mugshot – Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office

These criminal threats are not always readily apparent. The dated mugshot provided of Reyes from his 2001 arrest in Hidalgo County shows he was not a tattooed, gold-toothed, gang-member-looking-thug, seen in other criminals’ mug shots. He was someone who would not have raised any alarms if he were seen in your neighborhood. When asked how seeing Reyes’ mugshot affected him, Dan Golvach, told Breitbart Texas “Thank God I don’t have to look at him in Court!”

The Report on Operation Strong Safety warned that “The consequences of a porous international border with Mexico are not limited to the border; rather, they reverberate throughout the state and nation. In fact, many of the most serious consequences do not occur in our border communities. Instead they occur in our major urban areas where there is a proliferation of gangs with direct access to the drugs and people smuggled into Texas within the high-demand retail markets.”

It also detailed the effect of the Mexican Cartel on violent crimes in the United States. “The Mexican cartels have also carried out acts of violence in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S., including murders and kidnappings, aimed at recovering lost drug loads, intimidating or silencing rivals and witnesses and retaliation against their enemies.” Nearly all illegal aliens who illegally enter the United States made use of alien smuggling organizations, which are nearly all associated with Mexican cartels.

DPS reported that 313,100 illegal aliens were apprehended in Texas in 2014. Department of Homeland Security statistics reveal that more than 96,000 illegal aliens were arrested for criminal offenses and put into Texas jails between June 2011 and December 2014. Those arrests included 561 homicide charges, 27,588 assault charges, 8,984 burglary charges, 31,154 drug charges, 394 kidnapping charges, 17,133 theft charges, 23,476 obstructing law enforcement charges, 1,972 robbery charges, 2,836 sexual assault charges, and 3,770 weapons charges. The DPS Report stated that these numbers are likely an undercount of all the crime in Texas committed by IAs.

The Report stated that “The Texas State Legislature long ago recognized the importance and linkage of border security to public safety, and consistently, over the last several sessions, has dedicated substantial resources to increase capabilities in the border region.”

Victor Reyes came over the border at will, and deportation and borders obviously meant nothing to him.

Mr. Golvach told Breitbart Texas “this is a place of total despair. There is no healing from this.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/leaked-texas-dps-report-confirms-crime-related-dangers-swiss-cheese-border-86634/feed/0George W. Bush To Accompany Obama To Selmahttp://www.teaparty.org/george-w-bush-accompany-obama-selma-86631/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=george-w-bush-accompany-obama-selma
http://www.teaparty.org/george-w-bush-accompany-obama-selma-86631/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 13:02:21 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86631(Brietbart) - For President Barack Obama, it’s a week to invoke America’s civil rights struggles from past to present. The nation’s first black president plans a speech Saturday from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of one of the movement’s stirring moments, and will refocus on last year’s fatal shooting by a white ...

]]>(Brietbart) - For President Barack Obama, it’s a week to invoke America’s civil rights struggles from past to present.

The nation’s first black president plans a speech Saturday from the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of one of the movement’s stirring moments, and will refocus on last year’s fatal shooting by a white police officer of a black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri.

Recommendations were expected Monday from the president’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, appointed after Michael Brown’s death in August. Attorney General Eric Holder has said he expects to announce results of his department’s investigation of the case before he leaves office, and that word could come within days.

Obama’s actions are an important gesture toward the black community, which strongly backed him in his two White House races and will be critical for Democrats in the 2016 presidential campaign and their efforts to retake control of Congress.

Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, also plan to be at the Selma commemoration, and a large bipartisan congressional delegation planned to be a part of a three-day civil rights pilgrimage to the state.

The week also highlights the personal racial politics of the first black president’s past and future as he plans Friday to make his first return to South Carolina since the 2008 primary campaign in which he and Hillary Rodham Clinton fiercely fought for the state’s black voters.

Obama’s South Carolina event is tied to his 1-year-old My Brother’s Keeper initiative aimed at improving the lives of young minority men, expected to be a continuing focus for the president after he leaves office.

From the Pettus bridge on March 7, 1965, white police officers beat civil rights protesters in 1965. Obama last visited the bridge in 2007 when he was a presidential candidate; this time he is bringing his entire family.

“When I take Malia and Sasha down with Michelle next week, down to Selma, part of what I’m hoping to do is to remind them of their own obligations. Because there are going to be marches for them to march, and struggles for them to fight,” Obama said at a White House event Thursday celebrating Black History Month.

The Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King once preached, said voting rights and criminal justice reform were the main topics of a private meeting Obama held with civil rights leaders shortly before his public remarks.

“There was agreement in the room that voting rights is crucial, that it is urgent and it ought to be a nonpartisan issue,” Warnock said.

Warnock decried lawmakers for celebrating Selma’s anniversary while failing to restore the Voting Rights Act. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the section that determines which states and localities must get Washington’s approval for proposed election changes. The requirement was an effort to stop voting discrimination, mostly in the South. Congress has yet to come up with a new formula.

“The worst assault on voting rights since the Voting Rights Act was passed is happening right now,” Warnock said. “You can’t celebrate Selma and sit on the reauthorization.”

Warnock said Obama’s presidency has been a living tribute to the sacrifices of the generation that protested in Selma and elsewhere to promote civil rights. But he argued that a recent discussion among possible 2016 Republican presidential candidates over whether Obama loves his country is one example of how Obama’s election has highlighted continuing racism in America.

“I think there are people who still traffic in the narrow alley of bigotry and I think that there are politicians who sell bigotry as a means of elevating their argument or a narrow partisan interest,” Warnock said.

Obama’s Monday meeting with the police task force follows the three-month deadline he set for recommendations about how police can build trust, accountability and transparency with the communities they serve.

When he announced the task force’s creation in December, Obama promised the result would not be “an endless report that we’re going to have collecting dust on the shelf.”

“Part of the reason this time will be different is because the president of the United States is deeply invested in making sure this time is different,” Obama said.

]]>(Reuters) - Congress narrowly averted a partial shutdown of the U.S. domestic security agency late on Friday night, but the forces behind the chaotic episode remain – fractious Republicans and House Speaker John Boehner’s lack of control over them.

That may portend more serious trouble ahead as Washington confronts fiscal challenges on a grander scale. In five to seven months, the federal debt ceiling will again be reached, and by October Congress must pass spending bills to keep the government running in the new fiscal year.

Failing to deal effectively with these issues could have much more damaging repercussions – such as a broad government shutdown or a debt default – than a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

What happens between now and then, including the handling of a one-week extension of Homeland Security funding, will be crucial. Some conservatives speak of ousting Boehner, but it is unlikely they can muster enough votes, while others made clear on Friday that they were willing to take big risks to score ideological points.

Brinkmanship like this, reminiscent of 2013′s 16-day federal government shutdown, was supposed to be over. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said there would be no more shutdowns after his party won control of the upper chamber and strengthened its grip on the House last November.

Proclamations about Republicans showing they could govern soothed financial markets, which were rattled by the 2013 shutdown and badly shaken by 2011 budget fights that nearly resulted in an historic government default on its debt.

But Friday’s confused late-night scramble renewed old concerns about dysfunctional government. The House rejected a three-week funding extension for the agency when conservatives rebelled because the bill did not block Obama’s executive orders on immigration. On a second try late in the evening, House Democrats provided the votes to pass a one-week extension.

The angry conservatives’ embarrassing rebuke to Boehner showed they are more fiercely determined than ever to rein in federal spending, shrink the government and challenge Democratic President Barack Obama on multiple fronts.

“It’s very possible that come September, you could face this again,” said conservative Republican Representative Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, when asked about debt and budget fights ahead.

For small-government Tea Party activists looking to flex their muscles after November’s election victory, any attempt to borrow beyond the $18 trillion national debt will be a red flag. Congress also faces a Sept. 30 deadline for passing spending bills that are certain to add to the $18 trillion debt.

Unlike the upcoming debt limit and budget issues, the DHS battle was not about government spending, but about Obama’s recent executive actions to suspend the threat of deportation for 4.7 million illegal immigrants.

Still, Trent Lott, a former Senate Republican leader, said some congressional Republicans will not be able to resist further confrontations, especially over spending bills.

“I must say, there are going to be battles for the next two years trying to rein in Obama’s excesses with executive power and regulations,” Lott said.

More executive actions are expected from Obama in environmental and other controversial areas. That could mean that clashes will intensify, with many conservatives still seeing spending power as their strongest leverage.

Some of them say pressing the immigration fight is part of a non-negotiable duty for Congress to defend the Constitution. They say Obama took steps to change immigration policy that only Congress has the authority to carry out.

“This is not about immigration. This is about whether or not the president has the ability to unilaterally run this country, Representative Austin Scott of Georgia said in House floor debate on Friday.

The Obama administration counters that its unilateral action on immigration, after years of watching House Republicans block legislation, and has many presidential precedents.

Many Republicans are concerned that such fights are an election liability and undermine the party’s ability to demonstrate it can govern responsibly. However, similar concerns have been aired with each successive battle.

Republican Senator Mark Kirk, who could face a tough re-election in 2016, told Reuters that his party needs to change.

Referring to the DHS fight, the Illinois senator said: “I would say that this battle should be the end of the strategy of attaching whatever you’re upset at the president about to a vital piece of government.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/homeland-security-funding-drama-portend-bigger-budget-battle-september-86628/feed/0Justice Department To Fault Ferguson Police, Seeing Racial Bias In Traffic Stopshttp://www.teaparty.org/justice-department-fault-ferguson-police-seeing-racial-bias-traffic-stops-86626/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=justice-department-fault-ferguson-police-seeing-racial-bias-traffic-stops
http://www.teaparty.org/justice-department-fault-ferguson-police-seeing-racial-bias-traffic-stops-86626/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 12:47:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86626(New York Times) - The Justice Department has nearly completed a highly critical report accusing the police in Ferguson, Mo., of making discriminatory traffic stops of African-Americans that created years of racial animosity leading up to an officer’s shooting of a black teenager last summer, law enforcement officials said. According to several officials who have been ...

]]>(New York Times) - The Justice Department has nearly completed a highly critical report accusing the police in Ferguson, Mo., of making discriminatory traffic stops of African-Americans that created years of racial animosity leading up to an officer’s shooting of a black teenager last summer, law enforcement officials said.

According to several officials who have been briefed on the report’s conclusions, the report criticizes the city for disproportionately ticketing and arresting African-Americans and relying on the fines to balance the city’s budget. The report, which is expected to be released as early as this week, will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department or face being sued by it on civil rights charges. Either way, the result is likely to be significant changes inside the Ferguson Police Department, which is at the center of a national debate over race and policing.

Ferguson erupted into angry, sometimes violent protests after a white police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, in August. The Justice Department investigated that shooting, and officials have said they will clear the officer of civil rights charges. That finding is also expected soon.

But the report into the broader practices of the local police department will give the context for the shooting, describing the mounting sense of frustration and anger in a predominantly black city where the police department and local government are mostly white.

While the Justice Department’s exact findings are not yet known, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who is expected to leave office in the next few weeks, and other officials have said publicly that their investigation has focused on the use of excessive force and the treatment of prisoners in local jails as well as the traffic stops.

Blacks accounted for 86 percent of traffic stops in 2013 but make up 63 percent of the population, according to the most recent data published by the Missouri attorney general. And once they were stopped, black drivers were twice as likely to be searched, even though searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband.

For people in Ferguson who cannot afford to pay their tickets, routine traffic stops can become yearslong ordeals, with repeated imprisonments because of mounting fines. Such fines are the city’s second-largest source of revenue after sales tax. Federal investigators say that has provided a financial incentive to continue law enforcement policies that unfairly target African-Americans.

In an unrelated but similar case, the Justice Department recently filed court documents in a lawsuit over whether the city of Clanton, Ala., is running a debtors’ prison. The lawsuit says city officials there keep poor people in jail simply because of their inability to pay fines.

“Because such systems do not account for individual circumstances of the accused, they essentially mandate pretrial detention for anyone who is too poor to pay the predetermined fee,” wrote Vanita Gupta, the top civil rights prosecutor at the Justice Department, who is also supervising the Ferguson inquiry.

Investigators do not need to prove that Ferguson’s policies are racially motivated or that the police intentionally singled out minorities. They need to show only that police tactics had a “disparate impact” on African-Americans and that this was avoidable. Nevertheless, the Justice Department’s report is expected to include a reference to a racist joke that was circulated by email among city officials, according to several law enforcement officials.

James Knowles III, the mayor of Ferguson, said last week that he did not know what the Justice Department had found or would conclude. But he criticized Mr. Holder for saying recently that wholesale change was needed in Ferguson’s police department.

“How come they haven’t told us there is something that needs to be changed as they found it?” Mr. Knowles asked. “Why have they allowed whatever they think is happening to continue to happen for six months if that’s the case?”

Mr. Holder has stood by his remarks, saying they were based on his deep understanding of the case. “The reality is, I’ve been briefed all along on this matter,” he said at a news conference recently.

The Ferguson case will be the last in a long string of civil rights investigations into police departments that Mr. Holder has directed during his tenure. Since he became attorney general in 2009, the Justice Department has opened more than 20 such investigations and issued strong rebukes of departments in Cleveland and Albuquerque, accusing them of excessive force and unwarranted shootings.

The Ferguson report, however, is expected to more closely resemble last summer’s report into police activities in Newark. There, as in Ferguson, the police stopped black people at a significantly higher rate than whites. “This disparity is stark and unremitting,” the Justice Department wrote in that report, which concluded that African-Americans “bear the brunt” of the city’s unconstitutional police practices.

In some cities investigated by the Justice Department, such as Albuquerque and Portland, Ore., city officials have said they are open to making changes and quickly reaching an agreement with the department to fix problems. Others have taken a more confrontational approach, did not settle and faced a federal civil rights lawsuit. The Justice Department has four such lawsuits open, including one against Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., and another against Sheriff Terry S. Johnson of Alamance County, N.C.

Mr. Knowles said he would not speculate on how Ferguson would respond to the report. “The City of Ferguson is going to make its decisions based on what its residents and the people in this region feel is necessary to move us forward,” he said.

Mr. Knowles said the city hoped to increase diversity on its police force and was considering creating a board of citizens to help oversee it. He said the city was also considering creating a police youth program.

For Mr. Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, the Ferguson shooting was a signature moment. Already the most outspoken member of the Obama administration on issues of race relations, Mr. Holder became the president’s emissary to Ferguson and helped calm tensions amid protests after the shooting. He spoke in personal terms about being stopped by police as a college student and again as a prosecutor in Washington.

“I wanted the people of Ferguson to know that I personally understood that mistrust,” Mr. Holder said last summer after returning from Missouri. “I wanted them to know that while so much else may be uncertain, this attorney general and this Department of Justice stands with the people of Ferguson.”

Comments like these attracted criticism from some police groups who said Mr. Holder was taking sides and casting aspersions on police officers. Mr. Holder has pledged that the Ferguson investigation — by far the most closely watched during his tenure — would be fair and independent. “I’m confident people will be satisfied with the results,” he said.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/justice-department-fault-ferguson-police-seeing-racial-bias-traffic-stops-86626/feed/0Kerry Vows To Defend Israel At UN Human Rights Councilhttp://www.teaparty.org/kerry-vows-defend-israel-un-human-rights-council-86624/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kerry-vows-defend-israel-un-human-rights-council
http://www.teaparty.org/kerry-vows-defend-israel-un-human-rights-council-86624/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 12:41:18 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86624(Bloomberg) - Secretary of State John Kerry defended Israel on Monday at a United Nations group that’s often hostile toward the Jewish state. In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN’s top human rights group, Kerry showcased U.S. support for Israel just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses pro-Israel ...

]]>(Bloomberg) - Secretary of State John Kerry defended Israel on Monday at a United Nations group that’s often hostile toward the Jewish state.

In a speech to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the UN’s top human rights group, Kerry showcased U.S. support for Israel just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses pro-Israel activists in the U.S. about his alarm that the Obama administration is sacrificing Israel’s security in its effort to reach a nuclear deal with Iran.

“The HRC’s obsession with Israel actually risks undermining the credibility of the entire organization,” said Kerry. “We will oppose any effort by any group or participant in the UN system to arbitrarily and regularly delegitimize or isolate Israel, not just in the HRC but wherever it occurs.”

State Department officials said Kerry’s speech shows how the Obama administration looks out for Israel’s interests, even at a moment when high-level relations are at a two-decade low due to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and personal strains between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.

The U.S. seeks to thwart anti-Israel actions in international bodies, such as the Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court, and the UN Security Council, said the officials, who spoke anonymously under the department’s protocol before the speech.

Some Israeli officials and parts of the American Jewish community have expressed concern that the administration generally and Obama personally are anti-Israel or at least insufficiently supportive. That’s a narrative that might hurt Democrats with Jewish and other pro-Israel voters and might bolster Netanyahu in Israeli elections later this month.

Strong Relationship

Kerry, who speaks frequently with Netanyahu, said the U.S.- Israel security relationship remains strong and that the U.S. also backs Israel in other ways.

“We have intervened on Israel’s behalf the last few years more than several hundred, a couple of hundred times in over 75 different fora,” Kerry, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program.

The Human Rights Council has been a forum for attacks on Israel from Arab and other nations, and a highly critical report is expected later this month from the council’s commission of inquiry on last summer’s Gaza war.

‘Wanton Destruction’

Authorization for the investigation was drafted by the Palestinians and supported in a July vote by 29 of the 46-member council. In doing so, the council condemned what it said were widespread violations of international human rights and “wanton destruction” by Israel, asserting that most of the more than 650 Palestinians killed were civilians. Israel has said that it exercised care in military actions provoked by militants’ rocket attacks and that the Palestinians have falsely claimed as civilian casualties many militants involved in those attacks against Israeli communities.

The U.S. voted against the resolution, while European countries abstained. Israel has been concerned that the report may echo the resolution and largely blame it for deaths and damage and minimize the provocations by Palestinian militants.

The U.S. is working now to try to block potential follow-on action against Israel by the council, which the U.S. rejoined in 2009 in a policy change by Obama. In recent years, the U.S. has sought to use its membership to counter what a State Department official called the council’s undue and biased focus on Israel, which is the only nation facing scrutiny each year under a standing item on the council’s agenda.

The timing of Kerry’s address was also notable because this is the last year the U.S. will be a member under rotation rules that allow only two consecutive three-year terms. After a gap in 2016, the U.S. plans to run for re-election to the council for the 2017-19 period, an official said.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/kerry-vows-defend-israel-un-human-rights-council-86624/feed/0Lindsey Graham Helps Kick Off AIPAC With UN Funding Cut Threathttp://www.teaparty.org/lindsey-graham-helps-kick-aipac-un-funding-cut-threat-86621/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lindsey-graham-helps-kick-aipac-un-funding-cut-threat
http://www.teaparty.org/lindsey-graham-helps-kick-aipac-un-funding-cut-threat-86621/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 12:29:29 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86621(The Hill) - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) helped kick off a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group’s annual event in Washington on Sunday by threatening to cut funding to the United Nations. “All the money that goes in to support the State Department comes through my committee,” Graham said kicking off the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) ...

]]>(The Hill) - Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) helped kick off a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group’s annual event in Washington on Sunday by threatening to cut funding to the United Nations.

“All the money that goes in to support the State Department comes through my committee,” Graham said kicking off the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) opening session, according to Bloomberg.

“I’m gonna put the United Nations on notice,” said Graham, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, adding that he would go after its funding if the organization “marginalized” Israel, the news service added.

Lawmakers have protested the Palestinian Authority’s bid to join the International Criminal Court, which is investigating possible war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza last year. The U.N. has said the Palestinians will become a member in April.

Graham and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) kicked off the first session on Sunday, multiple outlets reported, to illustrate the bipartisan congressional support for Israel despite controversy over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Tuesday address to Congress, which came at the invitation of Republicans without White House input.

“The circumstances surrounding the invitation [to Netanyahu] were not what they should have been. We all understand that. But don’t lose focus. The bad guy is Iran,” Cardin said to applause, Bloomberg reported.

“Many journalists have written the story that this is a relationship in crisis,” AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr said, according to Bloomberg. “This is not a crisis. Frankly, it’s up to us to not let it become a crisis.”

U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and national security adviser Susan Rice are slated to speak at the event, though President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry will not. Obama, Biden and Kerry will also not be present at Netanyahu’s address Tuesday.

Other major speakers at the event include House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Democratic House Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).

]]>(Washington Times) - Lawmakers return Monday to the Capitol without a clear path out of the shutdown showdown over homeland security funds, with Senate Democrats resisting any negotiations and House Republicans determined to block President Obama’s deportation amnesty.

Congress bought itself a weeklong reprieve by passing a last-minute funding extension that avoided a shutdown last weekend, but the new Friday deadline hasn’t altered the impasse.

After rank-and-file House Republicans rebelled last week against their leaders’ strategy, Speaker John A. Boehner said Sunday that his troops were united in the fight to defund Mr. Obama’s immigration actions, if not on the tactics.

“Remember what’s causing this, it’s the president of the United States overreaching and it’s not just on immigration,” Mr. Boehner said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

The Ohio Republican pointed to the 38 times Mr. Obama unilaterally changed the Obamacare law, though it was Mr. Obama’s immigration moves that led to the funding crisis for the Homeland Security Department.

“So the frustration in the country, represented through the frustration of our members, has people scared to death that the president is running the country right off the cliff,” he said.

House Republicans broke ranks over the leadership’s plan to pass a three-week funding bill to prolong the fight and avoid a shutdown of the department that night. Enough GOP lawmakers joined with Democrats to kill the bill in a startling rebuke to Mr. Boehner.

The Senate later sent a one-week funding measure that the House overwhelmingly approved just two hours before a midnight shutdown deadline.

“We do have some members who disagree from time to time over the tactics that we decide to employ,” Mr. Boehner said. “But remember that Republicans are united in this idea that the president has far exceeded his constitutional authority and we all want to do things to stop the president from his illicit activity.”

Indeed, House Republican leaders and rank-and-file conservatives were in rare agreement about not backing down.

Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the conservative’s newly formed Freedom Caucus, threw cold water on the inside-the-beltway chatter about the GOP getting ready to agree to Democrats’ demands.

“That’s not going to happen,” the Ohio Republican said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Mr. Jordan said his party would instead redouble its effort to rally voters against Mr. Obama’s actions, which seek to grant legal status, work permits and Social Security numbers to more than 4 million illegal immigrations.

“We haven’t made the case strong enough. We know it’s unconstitutional and we know it’s unfair,” he said.

With a new deadline looming, House Republicans hope to push Senate Democrats into negotiations on a funding bill that includes anti-amnesty measures.

However, Senate Democrats remained adamant that the House pass a “clean” bill.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that her party would never compromise on the immigration cause.

“We want a clean bill. We have passed, taken votes on a clean bill,” she said. “I see nothing else happening, other than a clean bill.”

Mrs. Feinstein blamed the stalemate on Republicans, who she referred to as a “minority,” despite the GOP having majority control of both the House and Senate.

“What I have seen over the last few years is a growing need of a minority to impose their view, regardless of what the situation is,” she said. “I think most of us are accustomed to sitting down, we work out a compromise, which is not a dirty word, because, in a two-party system, you have to, if you’re going to make progress. Otherwise, you have stasis or gridlock. And so we have had more gridlock.”

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, last week repeatedly vowed not to go to conference to reconcile the House-passed bill with anti-amnesty measures and the Senate-passed bill without policy riders.

Senate Democrats will get to vote Monday on whether to allow a conference committee. They can block it by denying the 60 votes need to consider forming the committee.

Senate Republicans, who have a 54-seat majority, surrendered last week to demands for a clean bill in order to get Democrats to end their filibuster of the House-passed legislation.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested that Senate Republicans invoke the “nuclear option” of changing the chamber’s rules to stop filibusters, a tactic Senate Democrats used to push through confirmation of Mr. Obama’s nominees when they controlled the chamber.

Mr. McCarthy, California Republican, said the move would hardly be “nuclear” because the anti-amnesty measure had the support of 57 of the chambers 100 senators.

“That is not nuclear when 57 percent of the American representation says it’s wrong,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “That’s not in the constitution. I think they should change the rules.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/house-gop-unites-amnesty-homeland-security-showdown-intensifies-86619/feed/0House GOP leader: Senate Should Change Its Rules To Pass DHS Fundinghttp://www.teaparty.org/house-gop-leader-senate-change-rules-pass-dhs-funding-86616/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=house-gop-leader-senate-change-rules-pass-dhs-funding
http://www.teaparty.org/house-gop-leader-senate-change-rules-pass-dhs-funding-86616/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 12:16:33 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86616(The Hill) - House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that the Senate should change its rules in order to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “I think they should change the rule,” McCarthy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting the Senate invoke the so-called “nuclear option” to allow ...

]]>(The Hill) - House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said on Sunday that the Senate should change its rules in order to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“I think they should change the rule,” McCarthy said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting the Senate invoke the so-called “nuclear option” to allow spending bills to only require a simple majority to advance instead of 60 votes.

McCarthy’s comments represent frustration among House Republicans who were forced to vote on a one-week bill funding DHS and put off debate over President Obama’s executive action on immigration. Many conservatives have pushed for a plan to fund the agency while also rolling back Obama’s action.

“I don’t think going nuclear when you have 57 percent of the Senate [who] voted for the Collins amendment that would take away the president’s action,” McCarthy said on NBC, referencing a proposal from centrist Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to allow Obama’s 2012 executive action to stand but repeal his most recent moves.

Some House Republicans wanted to repeal his executive action from November deferring deportation for up to 5 million illegal immigrants and offering new work visas, but also attack his 2012 action to set up the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to harbor those who came to the U.S. as children.

“That’s not nuclear when 57 percent of the Senate … says it’s wrong. That’s not in the Constitution. I think they should change the rule,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy urged for the House and Senate to go to conference to reconcile differing GOP plans. The House easily passed a one-week DHS funding measure Friday with overwhelming Democratic support after failing to pass a three-week measure. The Senate passed a similar bill by voice vote and Obama signed the bill.

“I will tell you, as the majority leader in the House, I will be in that room and help solve that problem,” McCarthy said Sunday, downplaying divisions between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and conservatives who railed against both House votes Friday.

“We have difference of opinion and strategy of tactics, but in principle we are united,” McCarthy said.

“We took up legislation five weeks ago so we did not have a cliff. If there’s somebody who’s not being an adult, it’s the Democrats,” he added.

“The best thing that can happen is if we go to conference and settle our differences,” he said.

]]>(CNS News) - Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says President Obama’s executive action on immigration is unconstitutional and it’s unfair — and that’s why he and 51 other House conservatives voted against a Homeland Security funding bill on Friday that included money for Obama’s attempt to go beyond existing immigration law.

“We need to make the case. We haven’t made the case strong enough,” Jordan told CNN’s “State of the Union,” hosted by the liberal — and sharply critical — Dana Bash (see below).

“What the president did, how is it fair to citizens if you let noncitizens, illegals, go back and get tax refunds for the last three years, as (IRS) Commissioner Koskinen has testified under oath? How is it fair to seniors if you let noncitizens, illegals, participate in our Social Security system? How is it fair to voters?” Jordan asked.

“Our secretary of state, under oath, came and testified in Congress and said noncitizen illegals are going to have a potential now to be involved in our election process, to actually vote.

“And, most importantly, Dana, how is it fair, what the president did, how is it fair to those legal immigrants who did it the right way, who followed the law? How is it fair to them?”

Bash accused Jordan and other conservatives of being more interested in “sticking to principle” than they are in governing.

“We’re most interested in adhering to the principles that are consistent with the Constitution,” Jordan replied. “We’re most interested in doing what the voters elected us to do in November. You don’t think this was a big issue in the election last November? Of course it was…And the voters spoke overwhelmingly.”

Jordan said conservatives want Democrats to join Republicans in a conference committee to work out differences between the “clean” DHS funding bill passed by the Senate — and the bill passed six weeks ago by the House, which includes an amendment barring funding to carry out Obama’s plan to give Social Security numbers to illegal aliens.

“Basic civics,” Jordan said. “And now all we’re saying is, let’s go to conference committee. You passed government class in high school. I did, too. And we know how it works. We pass something, they pass something, you go sit around a table just like this, a nice, round table, and you work out the differences.

“What’s wrong with that process? That’s how it’s supposed to work.” Jordan said. He added, “that’s all” conservatives wanted when they went to House Republican leader and presented their plan last week: “Let’s go to conference. Make sure we go to conference.”

Jordan later said, “We need to get to conference and make sure language that’s close to what we passed in the House is the final product.”

Amid the recent impasse over DHS funding, Joran said he has not discussed an effort with other conservatives to remove John Boehner from the House speakership:

“No, of course not. That’s not…”

“Wait. Wait. Yes or no?” Bash interrupted.

“No. That’s not the point. The point is to do — to do what we told the voters we were going to do, and to do it in a way that’s consistent with the United States Constitution, consistent with fundamental fairness…”

Jordan said House conservatives will not challenge Boehner’s leadership, even if Boehner allows a vote on a clean funding bill next week, when the latest stopgap measure runs out.

“If your colleagues, if your conservative colleagues come to you and say, we want to try to make a play, we’re done with this leadership team, we want to try to make a play to get rid of them?” Bash asked.

“That’s — that’s — no, that’s not going to happen,” Jordan insisted.

Bash asked Jordan why conservative don’t just move to impeach the president “if you think that what the president did was so unconstitutional?”

“We’re not going to do that, either,” Jordan replied.

“One last question,” Bash said. “Do you want the House Republican leadership to succeed or not?”

“Of course we want them to succeed, because that helps the country succeed. That’s good for the families we represent,” Jordan said.

Bash began her interview with under the heading of “chaos in Congress,” saying, “The drama I watched unfold in the Capitol Friday night was different” than other chaotic events she’s covered:

“Now, I was reporting from the Capitol Friday night and had exasperated veteran Republican lawmakers say things to me like, how are we supposed to govern? They were at a loss with how to control their own right flank, at a time when American security couldn’t be more important.”

As she introduced Jordan — “a conservative from that right flank at the heart of all of this” — Bash announced she wanted to ask “the first question that everybody out there is probably asking, probably in disgust, saying, really? What is wrong with Congress? Why can’t you govern? And why can’t you fund a government agency that keeps us safe?”

Bash later asked Jordan why he doesn’t understand the “political reality” that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass anything other than a clean funding bill; and she also raised criticism by another lawmaker that Jordan and other like-minded conservatives are “phony” because they have “no credible policy proposals and no political strategy to stop Obama’s lawlessness.”

Bash ended the interview by saying that Congress “feels more chaotic. And it is impossible at this moment for the House speaker and the leadership to govern. And they feel like it is, because you-all just don’t take yes for an answer.”

Jordan told her, “What’s best for the country is to fund the Homeland Security Department — to fund the Homeland Security Department, but do it in a way consistent with the Constitution.

“That’s what the country — that’s what the election was about. The last time I checked, Republicans did pretty well in the election last November. We’re supposed to actually — politicians, when they get elected, are actually supposed to do what they told the voters they were going to do when they got the job.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/rep-jim-jordan-conservatives-havent-made-strong-enough-case-obamas-amnesty-86612/feed/0Rubio Close To Decision About Presidential Runhttp://www.teaparty.org/rubio-close-decision-presidential-run-86610/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rubio-close-decision-presidential-run
http://www.teaparty.org/rubio-close-decision-presidential-run-86610/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:55:26 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86610(Newsmax) - Marco Rubio isn’t quite ready to say he’s running for president, yet admits it sure does look like he will seek the White House in 2016. “I think that’s reflected in both our travel and some of the staffing decisions that we’ve made,” the Florida senator told The Associated Press. “We — if in ...

]]>(Newsmax) - Marco Rubio isn’t quite ready to say he’s running for president, yet admits it sure does look like he will seek the White House in 2016.

“I think that’s reflected in both our travel and some of the staffing decisions that we’ve made,” the Florida senator told The Associated Press. “We — if in fact I make that final decision on a run — want those elements to be in place.”

The message that his decision is still pending is one Rubio delivered again this past week on stage, both at the Conservative Public Action Conference outside Washington and at the conservative Club For Growth in Palm Beach. But allies of the first-term senator and former speaker of the Florida House who have spoken with him about his plans fully expect that he will run for president, rather than a second Senate term.

“I assume he’s running,” said Wayne Berman, a veteran Republican fundraiser who was chairman of Sen. John McCain’s presidential fundraising in 2008. “He will help the party turn the page, politically, to the next generation.”

Nearly a dozen people close to Rubio, including GOP officials, fundraisers and his advisers, say Rubio has told them he is in the final stages of planning the launch of his presidential run and will formally join the crowded field of Republican hopefuls as early as April. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their private conversations with Rubio.

Berman said he is working to line up donors to finance that national campaign. Among the donors who have signed on: former Rep. Bill Paxon, now with law firm Aiken Gump’s Washington offices, Dallas investor George Seay and Goldman Sachs’ Joe Wall. Their goal is to raise $50 million before next year’s Iowa caucuses, according to four donors who have spoken to Rubio about the likely campaign’s budget.

“Marco’s best asset is Marco,” said Scott Weaver, a former Capitol Hill staffer who organized a recent dinner for potential Rubio donors. “If you can get Marco in front of people, he sells himself. It’s been an easier sales process than we thought at this point.”

Rubio’s team is also aggressively courting Spencer Zwick, Mitt Romney’s top fundraiser in the 2012 presidential race. Zwick is sought after by several prospective Republican candidates and has also spoken favorably about Rubio’s chief rival, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

Bush was a mentor to Rubio during their time in Florida. The two are likely to compete for many of the same donors, both in Florida and nationwide, and Rubio acknowledges it would be “a bit unusual” to run against Bush.

“I think he’s proving he’s going to be a very formidable candidate,” Rubio said. “I just believe if you think the best place to serve your country is to run for and hopefully win the presidency, you move forward on that irrespective of who else is in the race. If I ran, it wouldn’t be against him.”

No major candidates for president have declared their intentions; even Bush says his decision on that is ahead. Formally entering the race triggers a host of legal and campaign finance complications. But a decision to commit is different for Rubio, whose Senate term runs through 2016. He has said repeatedly he will not run for Senate re-election and the presidential nomination at the same time.

That’s a different approach than likely presidential rival Rand Paul. The Kentucky senator is trying to set up a two-step system in his state that would allow him to seek the presidential nomination through a caucus and a Senate bid through a primary. Kentucky law prohibits one person from seeking two positions in the same nominating process.

Rubio’s advisers have told party leaders that they should expect to recruit a candidate to run for his Senate seat in 2016, according to four people involved in the talks, who discussed the private conversation on the condition of anonymity because Rubio has not notified the National Republican Senatorial Committee of his plans.

At the same time, Rubio’s team is preparing for a national campaign. His top political adviser and likely campaign manager, Terry Sullivan, has been recruiting operatives — including Jim Merrill, who ran Romney’s New Hampshire campaigns and was at Rubio’s side for a two-day visit to the state last week. Spokesman Alex Conant is leaving Rubio’s Senate office this week to begin work at his political action committee.

“When you consider doing something like that, you can’t just decide to do it and then start working,” Rubio said. “You have to have conditions in place to move forward. Some of them are very similar to the ones we’d have to take anyway if we ran for Senate. Others are different.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/rubio-close-decision-presidential-run-86610/feed/0Netanyahu To Ask Congress To Delay Obama Iran Dealhttp://www.teaparty.org/netanyahu-ask-congress-delay-obama-iran-deal-86607/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=netanyahu-ask-congress-delay-obama-iran-deal
http://www.teaparty.org/netanyahu-ask-congress-delay-obama-iran-deal-86607/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:53:15 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86607(Newsmax) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows what’s in a potential nuclear agreement with Iran and will ask the U.S. Congress to pose questions that may delay a deal, according to an official traveling with him. The official, who asked not be named because of the trip’s diplomatic sensitivity, said Israel knows enough about compromises ...

]]>(Newsmax) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows what’s in a potential nuclear agreement with Iran and will ask the U.S. Congress to pose questions that may delay a deal, according to an official traveling with him.

The official, who asked not be named because of the trip’s diplomatic sensitivity, said Israel knows enough about compromises that have been made during negotiations to be certain a deal would threaten the Jewish state’s security.

Netanyahu arrived in Washington to speak Monday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the biggest U.S. pro- Israel lobbying group. That may provide a preview of his address Tuesday to the U.S. Congress at the invitation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner, an event arranged without consulting the White House that has exacerbated tensions between the Israeli leader and President Barack Obama.

Obama administration officials have said an attempt by Congress to intervene would wreck chances for an accord between Iran and world powers and the president would veto such a measure. Netanyahu will tell lawmakers they should press for a delay in a deadline at the end of this month to agree on the framework for a deal and should change the agreement if they aren’t satisfied with it, the official traveling with the prime minister said.

Congressional Review

A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation last week that would give Congress the power to review any agreement that the U.S. and five other nations reached with Iran to curb its nuclear program in exchange for easing economic sanctions.

The measure offered by Robert Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the committee’s top Democrat, would delay any easing of sanctions on Iran for as long as 60 days. Under the bill, sanctions relief would remain prohibited if Congress voted against an Iran agreement and then overrode an expected veto by the president within the 60 days.

Netanyahu continues to discuss the issues with U.S. officials, and spoke with Secretary of State John Kerry by phone over the weekend, the official accompanying him said.

‘Political Football’

While the official expressed confidence that Israel knows what’s in the deal that’s taking shape with Iran, Kerry said last week that “anybody running around right now jumping in to say, ‘well, we don’t like the deal,’ doesn’t know what the deal is.”

Kerry said on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel share an interest in preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

“We don’t want to see this turned into some great political football,” Kerry said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program.

Netanyahu’s opponents in Israel have said his Washington trip is aimed at bolstering his standing before Israelis vote March 17 whether to give him a fourth term, and the White House has said Obama won’t see him during this visit because it’s so close to election day.

Netanyahu in the past has threatened Israeli airstrikes to thwart Iran, though it would take U.S. military capabilities to do more than delay an Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons.

“We are going to test whether or not diplomacy can prevent these weapons from being created so that you don’t have to turn to additional measures, including the possibility of a military confrontation,” Kerry said.

While the U.S. and allies say Iran is seeking the capability to build nuclear weapons, the Islamic Republic says its program is purely for peaceful, civilian purposes.

Kerry in Geneva

While the confrontation over Iran festers, Kerry will have an opportunity to showcase U.S. support for Israel on Monday at a United Nations conference in Geneva just hours before Netanyahu speaks before the pro-Israel activists in Washington.

State Department officials said Kerry’s speech to the UN Human Rights Council, a group often hostile to the Jewish state, will provide a tangible example of how the Obama administration looks out for Israel’s interests.

The U.S. works hard in international bodies, such as the human rights council, the International Criminal Court and the UN Security Council, to thwart anti-Israel actions, said the State Department officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under the department’s protocol.

“We have intervened on Israel’s behalf the last few years more than several hundred — a couple of hundred — times in over 75 different fora in order to protect Israel,” Kerry said in the ABC interview.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/netanyahu-ask-congress-delay-obama-iran-deal-86607/feed/0Putin And The New ‘Iron Curtain’http://www.teaparty.org/putin-and-the-new-iron-curtain-86604/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=putin-and-the-new-iron-curtain
http://www.teaparty.org/putin-and-the-new-iron-curtain-86604/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:44:59 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86604(Front Page Magazine) - On March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Formally entitled “The Sinews of Peace,” it has been known ever since as the “iron curtain” speech. He told his audience that he would offer them his “true and faithful counsel in these ...

]]>(Front Page Magazine) - On March 5, 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. Formally entitled “The Sinews of Peace,” it has been known ever since as the “iron curtain” speech. He told his audience that he would offer them his “true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times.”

Churchill identified the two great dangers that menace the world; what he called “the two giant marauders, war and tyranny.” War, he stated, often results from “the designs of wicked men” and “the aggressive urge of mighty states.” Tyranny reigns when “the power of the State is exercised without restraint, either by dictators or by compact oligarchies operating through a privileged party and a political police.”

After extolling the virtues of a continued close association of the English-speaking peoples, Churchill turned his attention to “certain facts about the present position in Europe.” “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” On the eastern side of the iron curtain, the lands and peoples “are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

He called this development a “shadow” that had fallen upon the world, and he warned that the “dangers will not be removed by closing our eyes to them. They will not be removed by mere waiting to see what happens; nor will they be removed by a policy of appeasement.” The Russians, he said, admire strength but have no respect for weakness, “especially military weakness.” “If the Western Democracies stand together in strict adherence to the principles of the United Nations charter, their influence for furthering those principles will be immense and no one is likely to molest them.” But he warned that if the West becomes divided or falters, “then indeed catastrophe may overwhelm us all.”

Sixty-nine years later, a modern-day Churchill might look to the following facts and circumstances in today’s Europe. Valdimir Putin’s Russia has waged war against Georgia for the breakaway province of South Ossetia and recently signed a “border agreement” with South Ossetian leaders that Georgia condemned as a move closer to Russian annexation of the province. It has annexed the Crimean peninsula and is waging war in eastern Ukraine. Last November it signed a “strategic partnership” agreement with Abkhazia. Russian warships and military planes repeatedly have conducted military exercises near Latvian airspace and territorial waters in the Baltic, an effort, according to British defense officials, to destabilize the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Putin’s Russia has been an accomplice to Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear bomb. It is engaged in military cooperation with China of a “systemic character,” according to Russia’s Defense Minister. Russia is currently in the midst of a $700 billion rearmament program.

At home, Putin continues to crackdown on any opposition. Boris Nemtsov, a vocal critic of the Putin regime, was murdered recently in Moscow. Nemtsov joins Alexei Navalny, Stanislav Markelov, Anna Politkovskaya, Natalia Estemirova, and Alexander Litvinenko as Putin opponents who have been murdered or assassinated under “mysterious” circumstances.

Putin, the onetime KGB agent, told his countrymen in 2005 that,

“we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century . . . [F]or the Russian nation, it became a genuine drama. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and co-patriots found themselves outside Russian territory. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration infected Russia itself.”

Vladimir Putin has let loose on Europe the giant marauders of war and tyranny. Putin is one of those “wicked men” described by Churchill who has reinvigorated the “aggressive urge” of the mighty Russian state. He combines tyranny at home with aggression abroad, and appears to be erecting a new iron curtain in Eastern Europe.

At the conclusion of “The Sinews of Peace,” Churchill, referring to his repeated warnings in the 1930s about the danger to world peace posed by Hitler’s Germany, stated: “Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention.” Unless the world pays increasing attention today to Putin’s attempt to reconstitute in some form a new great Russian Empire, Europe and the world may be headed for another catastrophe that Churchill spoke so eloquently about preventing.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/putin-and-the-new-iron-curtain-86604/feed/0Scott Walker Is Headed For Trouble With The GOP Establishmenthttp://www.teaparty.org/scott-walker-headed-trouble-gop-establishment-86601/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=scott-walker-headed-trouble-gop-establishment
http://www.teaparty.org/scott-walker-headed-trouble-gop-establishment-86601/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:34:04 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86601(Washington Examiner) - Scott Walker likes to tell a story about shopping at Kohl’s. Under instructions from his wife Tonette, Walker has learned how to pile on the discounts and coupons whenever he goes to the popular Wisconsin-based department store. If he sees a shirt on the rack with a tag that reads, “Was $29.99, Now ...

]]>(Washington Examiner) - Scott Walker likes to tell a story about shopping at Kohl’s. Under instructions from his wife Tonette, Walker has learned how to pile on the discounts and coupons whenever he goes to the popular Wisconsin-based department store. If he sees a shirt on the rack with a tag that reads, “Was $29.99, Now $19.99,” Walker explains, he goes to the cash register with a flyer from the newspaper and gets another ten or 15 percent off. Then he pulls out his Kohl’s credit card and there’s another ten percent. And another newspaper flyer that might be worth as much as 30 percent off. “And the next thing you know, they’re paying me to buy that shirt!” Walker exclaims.

When Walker told the story at the Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa in late January, the audience ate it up — just loved it — and Walker was rewarded with rousing applause. Fast forward to Saturday morning, here in Palm Beach, when Walker told it again at a meeting of wealthy donors sponsored by the Club for Growth in an ornate ballroom at The Breakers, one of the most opulent hotels in America. The reception to Walker’s story was polite, but noticeably more subdued than in Iowa.

“Probably not as many Kohl’s shoppers here,” Walker said dryly when I asked him afterward about the contrast. “In Iowa, the people went ‘Yeah! We feel great when we get that 30 percent in the mail.’”

At The Breakers, in front of the contributors whose approval all GOP candidates hope to win, it wasn’t quite the same. But Walker still saw value in telling the story. “A lot of these donors were frustrated after the last election because they were feeling…that Americans couldn’t relate to our nominee,” he told me. “So even if they don’t necessarily relate to that story, I think they appreciate that someone like me can tell that story and relate to the people who we’re going to need in the next election.”

That’s a huge part of Walker’s appeal right now: He seems to be the Republican candidate who has the best chance of connecting with the millions of middle-class voters who have drifted away from the GOP in recent elections. And for that reason, Walker looks like the man who can attract almost everyone in the Republican camp — social, economic, and national security conservatives — in addition to those disaffected voters. That’s a huge plus for Walker and, along with his impressive record in Wisconsin, is the reason he has shot to the first tier of the Republican race in recent weeks.

At the same time, Walker could be headed for trouble with the establishment, Washington-based wing of his party. Look for GOP insiders to begin whispering, and then saying out loud, that Walker needs to raise his game if he is going to play on the national stage. On the one hand, they’ll have a point — Walker needs to come up with clear, crisply-expressed positions on a variety of national and international issues. On the other hand, Walker’s way-outside-the-Beltway method of expressing himself might resonate with voters in primary and caucus states more than Washington thinks.

For example, in our conversation Saturday, I asked Walker what Republicans in Washington should do in the standoff over funding the Department of Homeland Security. “Not just Republicans, I think the Congress as a whole needs to find a way to fund homeland security going forward,” Walker answered. He explained that he recognized the concerns lawmakers have about giving up their ability “to push back on the president’s questionable, if not illegal, actions.” Walker noted that he was part of the states’ lawsuit against Obama’s action. “I think they’re right that the president is wrong,” Walker told me, “but I also think we’ve got to make sure that homeland security isn’t compromised.”

After a little more along those lines, I said I was still a little unclear on where Walker stood. Should Republicans stand firm on not funding Obama’s unilateral action on immigration, or should they go ahead and fund the Department of Homeland Security without regard to what Obama has done? Here is what Walker said:

I think they have to figure out some way to have the bridge to continue to fund homeland security but in a way that doesn’t remove their ability to come back sometime in the not too distant future if the court rules or if the administration changes how they do this action in a way that could be upheld in court. They need to have the power of the purse string to offer a counter to that.

What does that mean, exactly? It’s not entirely clear. On one hand, it appeared Walker was adopting the time-honored stance of the governor who stands outside the squabbling of both parties in Washington — a tactic that last worked quite well for George W. Bush in 2000. He’ll appeal to more voters by not getting stuck in the Washington mud.

On the other hand, maybe Walker just hadn’t thought it through very carefully. Certainly some parts of his performance before the Club for Growth led observers to suspect that he has not really dived into a number of big issues — not just foreign policy, but domestic as well — that will serve as tests for presidential candidates in coming months.

One easy question, at least as far as members of the Club were concerned, involved the Export-Import Bank. The Club wants to see it die; that’s a good conservative position. All the other candidates who came to Palm Beach — Bush, Cruz, Rubio, Jindal — quickly and clearly said Ex-Im should be allowed to expire. But not Walker. Here’s how he answered the question:

I think again, if you do what I mentioned with the tax code, if you make it fair and simple, if you do trade overall that’s open and fair going forward across the world, across the globe, and you simplify the regulatory code, then the most compelling argument people would say is that this Bank is there because other countries have it, somehow we need it out there — I think that’s a faulty argument and premise, but I understand why today, when you’ve got all these other various regulations and a tax code that doesn’t work and other things, but if you simplify the tax code, you simplify the regulatory climate, you pull back the frivolous and out-of-control lawsuits, there’s no need to have it, and let the market drive everything, and those that are worthy of the competition, big or small, I think, will do well.

It wasn’t exactly a straightforward answer, and the Club questioner noted that the audience would have liked to hear the word “eliminate.” Walker eventually said he did not support re-authorizing Ex-Im, but it took a while to get there. In the end, Walker left the uncomfortable impression that he hadn’t considered the question very seriously.

And then there was foreign policy. No one expects a governor to have dived deeply into international affairs this early in the race, but Walker is definitely a work in progress. In recent weeks, for example, he has cited his command of the Wisconsin National Guard as evidence of national security experience, and in Palm Beach on Saturday, he pointed to Ronald Reagan’s 1981 firing of the air traffic controllers as “the most significant foreign policy decision of my lifetime” — a decision made, in case anyone missed the point, by “a president who was previously a governor.”

Walker’s comparison set off a lot of debate over whether the air traffic control firings, as consequential as they were, really supported the point Walker was trying to make. Whatever the case, Walker insisted that “Foreign policy is something that’s not just about having a Ph.D or talking to Ph.Ds. It’s about leadership.” In our conversation, he said he has gathered together advisors — some of whom do have Ph.Ds — and is working on foreign policy questions.

Still, all that has led to some feelings of unease among policy experts and Republican insiders that Walker, for all his outward popularity, might be headed for difficulties over the substance of policy. Yes, he has a huge record of achievement as a governor. But will that be enough to get him through a long campaign?

In contrast, other Republican candidates — some with less impressive records of accomplishment than Walker — have shown a lot of fluency with national and international issues. From Jeb Bush, with his long exposure to both state and national governance, to Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, senators who speak with some authority on big issues, to others like Bobby Jindal, and potentially John Kasich and Mike Pence, who have experience on both the state and federal stage — other candidates are ahead of Walker in their ability to come up with sharp and well-argued statements on domestic and foreign policy. Walker will have to reach beyond his record to compete with them on the issues and present himself to voters as a potential president.

It’s not clear whether Walker’s problem is temporary or longer lasting. Part of the difficulty is that he has found himself far ahead of where he thought he would be at this stage in the race, and is thus under a much hotter spotlight than he might have imagined. In our conversation, I asked whether the campaign had shifted under his feet. “Totally,” Walker said, without a moment’s hesitation.

“We thought all along if we got in, it would be kind of this slow and steady, don’t worry about the other guys, just keep focused on moving forward, and as candidates chose not to get in or fell off, we’d be in a position to make a compelling case to them,” Walker explained. “We had no idea that after that Iowa summit there would be that kind of acceleration to the race. But we’re here, and we’re not going to complain about it.”

Walker assumed that in the best-case scenario he would be in for a long, slow move to the front of the Republican pack. But he caught a slingshot out of Iowa and instead finds himself at the top of many GOP lists at a very early point in the race. Now he has to take some time to catch up with himself.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/scott-walker-headed-trouble-gop-establishment-86601/feed/1NATO Commander Urges Pressure On Moscow Over Missile Treaty Breachhttp://www.teaparty.org/nato-commander-urges-pressure-moscow-missile-treaty-breach-86598/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nato-commander-urges-pressure-moscow-missile-treaty-breach
http://www.teaparty.org/nato-commander-urges-pressure-moscow-missile-treaty-breach-86598/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:29:06 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86598(Washington Free Beacon) - The commander of the U.S. European Command and NATO is calling for pressuring Russia against deploying new cruise missiles that violate the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty. “We have to change Mr. Putin’s decision calculus as to whether he uses these [missiles] or brings these forward or deploys these,” Air Force Gen. ...

]]>(Washington Free Beacon) - The commander of the U.S. European Command and NATO is calling for pressuring Russia against deploying new cruise missiles that violate the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty.

“We have to change Mr. Putin’s decision calculus as to whether he uses these [missiles] or brings these forward or deploys these,” Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove told reporters at the Pentagon during a briefing last week.

“We have to change that, and that series of thoughts that the SecDef [Ashton Carter] put forward are options that would help change that.”

Breedlove was referring to written answers to questions Carter submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee outlining the options the Pentagon is considering in response to the Russian Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty violation, first confirmed last year by the State Department but known by U.S. intelligence agencies for more than five years.

The INF treaty bans ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 310 and 3,400 miles.

Carter told the committee in his written statement that U.S. options in response to Moscow’s INF breach include “active defenses to counter intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missiles; counterforce capabilities to prevent intermediate-range ground-launched cruise missile attacks; and countervailing strike capabilities to enhance U.S. or allied forces.”

“U.S. responses must make clear to Russia that if it does not return to compliance our responses will make them less secure than they are today,” Carter stated.

Bryan McKeon, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, told the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces last week that the United States does not favor the option of deploying new nuclear missiles.

McKeon said in addition to its violation of the INF treaty, Russia’s occupation of Crimea, its aggression in eastern Ukraine, and its “increasingly aggressive nuclear posturing and threats” pose “one of our most pressing and evolving strategic challenges—challenges felt across the strategic forces mission space.”

“We need not respond symmetrically to every Russian provocation,” McKeon said in his written statement.

“In particular, there is currently no need to expand the role for U.S. nuclear weapons, or to change our nuclear posture,” he said.

“We do not want to find ourselves engaged in an escalatory action/reaction cycle as a result of Russia’s violation of the INF Treaty,” McKeon said. “We will continue to press Russia to return to compliance with the treaty, while at the same time preparing responses to prevent Russia from gaining a significant military advantage from its violation and to protect the security interests of the United States and our allies.”

Several diplomatic efforts to convince Moscow to return to compliance with the arms treaty so far have failed.

Instead, Moscow has accused the United States of violating the INF treaty through missile target testing and drones—both systems not covered by the treaty.

Breedlove said he agrees with current U.S. efforts to try to convince the Russians to come back into compliance on INF.

“And then if that doesn’t work, we begin to look at the next series of options,” he said.

The new Russian weapon that has been tested in violation of the INF treaty has been identified as a cruise missile variant of the Iskander short-range ballistic missile.

James Clapper, director of national intelligence, revealed in his a prepared statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that the Iskander is the missile in question.

Clapper stated that a senior Russian official, Sergei Ivanov, stated as early as 2007 that “Russia had tested a ground-launched cruise missile for its Iskander weapon system whose range complied with the INF treaty ‘for now.’”

Ivanov also said in 2013 that because of the spread of intermediate range nuclear missiles around the world Russia was building an “appropriate weapons system” to deal with the changed international geopolitical environment since the INF treaty was signed.

“The development of a cruise missile that is inconsistent with INF, combined with these statements about INF, calls into question Russia’s commitment to this treaty,” Clapper stated.

Breedlove said so far it does not appear the new missile is deployed, but he added that “it’s not that clear.”

“In Kaliningrad or in Crimea, there are those dual-use weapon systems that could very easily be nuclear or non-nuclear, and our ability to tell the difference between one and the other is very tough, and this is very worrisome,” Breedlove said.

“Ground-based weapons systems that are typically conventional which have nuclear capability can be fielded on, or dual use aircraft in the Crimea, that could either be nuclear or conventional,” he said.

Because the missiles and aircraft can be used for either conventional or nuclear strikes, “it’s really hard for us to tell if they’re being forward-stationed in one or the other mode,” the four-star general said.

“This dual-use capability brings an ambiguity that is really hard for us to pick up in our intelligence and indications and warnings.”

Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, told a House hearing Feb. 26 that he is concerned about Russia’s tactical nuclear capabilities.

“I have concerns that Russia has a number of non-strategic nuclear weapons in their arsenal,” Haney said. “And they also have modernization programs associated with them, as well as…the ground-launch cruise missile system that they’ve been testing.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/nato-commander-urges-pressure-moscow-missile-treaty-breach-86598/feed/0ISIS Threatens Twitter Founder And Employees Over Blocked Accountshttp://www.teaparty.org/isis-threatens-twitter-founder-employees-blocked-accounts-86593/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=isis-threatens-twitter-founder-employees-blocked-accounts
http://www.teaparty.org/isis-threatens-twitter-founder-employees-blocked-accounts-86593/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:20:23 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86593(BuzzFeed) - ISIS supporters on Sunday called on jihadis around the world to kill Twitter employees because of the company’s frequent blocking of their social media accounts. “Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you,” reads an online post addressed to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and shared by ISIS supporters. The post, ...

Twitter, like YouTube, often moves quickly to delete posts and suspend accounts that disseminate ISIS videos showing the gruesome executions of hostages.

Twitter’s terms of service bar users from posting or publishing “direct, specific threats of violence against others.” Users are also banned from using the service “for any unlawful purposes or in furtherance of illegal activities.”

“You started this failed war,” the ISIS post says. “We told you from the beginning it’s not your war, but you didn’t get it and kept closing our accounts on Twitter, but we always come back.”

“But when our lions [brave men] come and take your breath, you will never come back to life.”

ISIS supporters who have been barred from traveling to Syria or Iraq to join the insurgent group have been previously encouraged to instead launch lone-wolf attacks in their Western home countries. Just last month, ISIS used Twitter to post a video suggesting followers launch attacks on police or military officials in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

Sunday’s online message (which was also shared on Twitter) called on ISIS sympathizers to attack the social media company and its “interests.”

“For the ‘individual jihadi’ all over the world, target the Twitter company and its interests in any place, people, and buildings, and don’t allow any one of the atheists to survive.”

A spokesman for Twitter, Jim Prosser, told BuzzFeed News: “Our security team is investigating the veracity of these threats with relevant law enforcement officials.”

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/isis-threatens-twitter-founder-employees-blocked-accounts-86593/feed/4Administration Denies Obama Threatened To Shoot Down Israeli Warplaneshttp://www.teaparty.org/administration-denies-obama-threatened-shoot-israeli-warplanes-86591/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=administration-denies-obama-threatened-shoot-israeli-warplanes
http://www.teaparty.org/administration-denies-obama-threatened-shoot-israeli-warplanes-86591/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:15:30 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86591(Washington Times) - President Obama threatened last year to use the U.S. military to shoot down Israeli fighter jets if they attempted to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, according to Middle Eastern news outlets Sunday — reports the administration denounced later that day as flatly untrue. Mr. Obama’s threat reportedly deterred Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ...

]]>(Washington Times) - President Obama threatened last year to use the U.S. military to shoot down Israeli fighter jets if they attempted to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, according to Middle Eastern news outlets Sunday — reports the administration denounced later that day as flatly untrue.

Mr. Obama’s threat reportedly deterred Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from dispatching warplanes into Iran after Israel discovered that the U.S. had entered into secret talks with Tehran and that the two countries had signed an agreement, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida.

In a statement to The Washington Times early Sunday evening, a senior administration said “that report is totally false.”

Al-Jarida also reported Sunday that “well placed” sources confirmed an unnamed Israeli minister disclosed the plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Mr. Obama replied by warning that he would foil the plan by shooting down Israeli jets before they could reach their target destinations.

“Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel’s security,” the report said.

The report added that the Israeli plan was practiced for several weeks in the form of aerial war exercises, and that Israeli Air Force even test-flew their fighter jets over Iranian airspace to simulate the actual planned attack.

The stunning stories come only two days before Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before U.S. Congress about the Iranian nuclear threat, much to the dismay of Mr. Obama and White House officials.

Mr. Kerry didn’t comment specifically on the reports during an appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” but he did claim that Israel is safer today because of the Obama administration, including the interim deal with Iran on weapons-grade uranium.

“Israel is safer today, and that is the standard that we will apply to any agreement going forward. It is to guarantee that we will know that Iran cannot develop a nuclear weapon under the procedure that we’re putting in place,” Mr. Kerry said on “This Week.”

He downplayed the reports on any Obama-Netanyahu rift, saying “the prime minister is welcome in the United States at any time. We have an unparalleled close security relationship with Israel, and we will continue to” have one, going on to tout U.S. help in developing Israel’s missile-defense system.

“President Obama has done more to ensure the security of Israel by the creation of Iron Dome, by the development of weapons that are specifically calculated to be able to deal with Iran’s nuclear weapon problem, and the president has pledged that they will not get a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Israeli media agency Arutz Sheva noted that the idea to thwart an Israeli attack on Iran to preserve nuclear talks may have originally hatched with former Carter national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

“We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” the Carter administration national security adviser said in a 2008 interview with the Daily Beast.

“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.’”

Mr. Brzezinski’s mention of ‘Liberty’ was in reference to a famous incident in 1967, when Israel mistakenly attacked a U.S. warship during the Six-Day War.

Mr. Brzezinski was originally under consideration to work as an advisor to Mr. Obama, but he was downgraded after there were concerns that his perceived anti-Israel attitude would harm Mr. Obama at the polls.

Last week, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Saudi Arabia agreed to allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran if necessary in exchange “some kind of progress” on the Palestinian issue.

“The Saudis have declared their readiness for the Israeli Air Force to overfly Saudi air space en route to attack Iran if an attack is necessary,” the Israeli Channel 2 report stated.

“The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” the Channel 2 report quoted an unnamed European, Brussels based official as saying.

]]>http://www.teaparty.org/administration-denies-obama-threatened-shoot-israeli-warplanes-86591/feed/2Politics-Govt ‘Abortion President’ Forces ‘Solution’ to Rise in Rape of Undocumented Girlshttp://www.teaparty.org/politics-govt-abortion-president-forces-solution-rise-rape-undocumented-girls-86588/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=politics-govt-abortion-president-forces-solution-rise-rape-undocumented-girls
http://www.teaparty.org/politics-govt-abortion-president-forces-solution-rise-rape-undocumented-girls-86588/#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 04:11:40 +0000http://www.teaparty.org/?p=86588As more and more illegal immigrant girls are being raped and impregnated and ending up in care facilities, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has prescribed a “solution” that follows suit with President Barack Obama’s legacy of pushing abortion. (One News Now) – HHS has just issued new regulations that it says will ...

]]>As more and more illegal immigrant girls are being raped and impregnated and ending up in care facilities, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has prescribed a “solution” that follows suit with President Barack Obama’s legacy of pushing abortion.

(One News Now) – HHS has just issued new regulations that it says will alleviate the escalating problem of undocumented sexually abused girls who are unaccompanied by an adult while being held in its health care clinics. Under the Obama administration, HHS has implemented these new pro-abortion laws that force taxpayer-funded facilities to provide abortions and/or info that they are available.

According to LIfeSiteNews.com, the new rules were published by HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and state that the raped children must be given “timely, unimpeded access” to surgical abortions or other forms of abortion through emergency contraception, such as the “morning-after pill,” “Plan B” and other abortifacients once a pregnancy has been confirmed by staff.

These regulations are to be strictly enforced by the medical clinics contracted by HHS … or stiff consequences will ensue.

“Contracted care facilities that object to such drugs and procedures on religious grounds will only be able to retain their contracts if they agree to fully inform abuse victims of their legal right to ‘emergency contraception’ and abortion, and immediately notify the ORR when girls request them, or by partnering with an organization that is willing to provide access in their stead,” reports LifesiteNews.com’s Kirsten Anderson.

If not administering abortions, promote them …

According to the new policy, facilities administrators must be 100 percent on board with abortion as a primary procedure or option to eliminate what they consider as symptoms of the girls’ sexual abuse — pregnancies.

An HHS spokesperson for its Administration for Child and Families (ACF) confirmed that the ORR, which it oversees, indeed covers abortions — at taxpayers’ expense — meaning that along with Obamacare, American taxpayers are paying to terminate the lives of preborn children from citizens of differenct nations.

“The ‘lawful pregnancy-related medical services’ includes abortion,” stated an ACF representative in an email response to an inquiry by CNSNews. “[The new regulations are the] first … to comprehensively address the issues of sexual abuse and sexual harassment in Office of Refugee Resettlement care provider facilities nationwide.”

Rewarding rape?

Taking little to no preventative measures to ensure the sexual assaults and unwanted pregnancies happen again, the pro-abortion rules condoning such behavior are actually described as rewarding the illicit sexual conduct of illegal minors.

“However, the rules expressly forbid punishment of minors (referred to in the document as ‘UCs’) found to have engaged in sexual abuse of other children, requiring them instead to be separated from their victims and given opportunities to ‘improve [their] behavior,’” Anderson explains.

Taking a progressive approach toward dealing with the illicit sexual activity, the HHS rules put it this way:

“Rather than imposing disciplinary sanctions to control UC behavior, care provider facilities use positive reinforcement via a token economy system,” the policy reads. “UCs receive extra privileges or the ability to participate in extra activities, such as a movie night, when they exhibit positive or ‘good’ behavior. UCs may not be able to participate in extra activities if they do not exhibit good behavior, but UCs never have services taken away nor are they ever placed in isolation for disciplinary reasons.”

Unstoppable … rapid stealth enforcement

The new HHS rules are an example of another federal program lacking transparency — a program that would have met strong resistance from social conservatives, the religious Right and other pro-life advocates.

“The new regulations have been implemented without warning or input from taxpayers, bypassing normal government rulemaking procedures that require a formal public notice and a request for comments from the public before any proposed rule change goes into effect,” Anderson points out.

Addressing the stealth implementation of its policy, HHS excused itself by claiming that it was forced into immediate action to meet a so-called emergency need.

“HHS will ordinarily publish a notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register and invite public comment on the proposed rule, [but] HHS has determined that it would be contrary to the public interest to delay finalizing the provisions of this regulation until a public notice and comment process is complete,” rationalized ORR’s document explaining the regulations rationalized. “HHS believes that implementing standards that govern the detection, prevention, and response to the sexual abuse and sexual harassment of UCs as soon as possible is of such importance that publishing a notice of proposed rulemaking would be contrary to the public interest.”

In order to ensure that all care providers are abiding by the new rules, HHS will administer routine audits. The facilities must comply by June 24 in order to continue receiving federal funding and avoid penalties.